Nike Yoga Pants Review

Looking for Nike yoga pants for women?

Nike has built a worldwide brand name, but does that brand translate well to the yoga world?

Since yoga has come into the mainstream starting in the late 1990s, a huge market has sprung up around yoga pants.

However, “yoga pants” aren’t what they used to be.

For a good while, when people spoke of yoga pants, they were talking specifically of a certain style of workout pant.

This classic yoga pant style for women had a wide waistband without elastic in it that could optionally fold down.

The area around the glutes and thighs would hug the skin.

Then, at the bottom of the yoga pant, you would have a small flare at the leg opening.

These yoga pants were popular for a long time, and women started to wear them outside of yoga class, prompting debates about whether these tight fitting pants should be worn out in public.

Starting with the skinny jeans revolution that launched in 2005, the flares that used to dominate yoga classes started to be replaced with straight leggings. Despite this, when people look for yoga pants, they are often still looking for that old school classic style with the boot leg flare.

In fact, you can find tons of these types of yoga pants on Amazon, and they are quite popular, judging by all of the reviews and recently purchased pants from 2018.

However, if you are looking for this classic style of yoga pants, sorry, at this time, Nike does not offer them.

So, when we are talking about “Nike yoga pants,” we don’t mean classic yoga pants.

In fact, it could be said that Nike doesn’t really make yoga pants at all, straight-legged leggings or otherwise.

Oh, they make leggings all right. But they aren’t specifically designed for yoga.

You might search for Nike yoga pants, and they even have a section for “yoga” on their website, but here’s the catch.

Nike doesn’t really make its own line of yoga wear that is unique and different. They don’t make classic yoga pants at all.

What they do offer is a selection of fairly bland and boring workout leggings and capris that they also put in a section called “yoga.” However, these “pants” are also marketed as general workout pants, because that’s what they really are.

In other words, if you look at a pair of “yoga” pants on the Nike website, you’ll find that same pair of stretchy leggings over in the section called “training.”

Now, there isn’t necessarily anything hugely terrible about Nike repurposing their generic workout leggings for yoga.

You can, of course, use standard stretch workout pants for yoga just fine.

Unfortunately, because Nike is not really investing into creating a workout pant that is specifically designed for the Western yoga culture and aesthetic, their “yoga pants” really aren’t that unique.

They aren’t even branded with names that might appeal to yogis. That could potentially be a plus if you are tired of generic yoga pants being named esoteric things like “Shakti” and “Lakshmi.” But it just seems like Nike isn’t really trying that hard.

Instead, you’ll see a bunch of brand names like:

That really speaks “yoga,” doesn’t it?

For the amount of money Nike spends on marketing, you would think they might hire some people to come up with more creative names for their so-called yoga products.

OK, that might seem like a shallow complaint, but it speaks to the overall effort Nike is putting into this line of clothing. They aren’t going out of their way to make anything that says “yoga” – name-wise, material-wise, or design-wise.

This means that most Nike workout clothing, and this includes Nike “yoga pants,” are a somewhat unappealing mixture of synthetic fabrics such as nylon, polyester, and spandex.

Nike polyester has a tendency to be slippery. Despite advertising the fabric as “Dri-FIT” high-peformance fabric, it doesn’t seem to do much for sweat. And it is just not as soft and luxurious as high quality real yoga pants made from blends of organic cotton or bamboo.

On the positive, Nike does offer plus-sized versions of many of their workout pants. And, they actually use real plus-sized models and don’t airbrush the bare muffin-top away.

That is a definite plus for Nike, especially if you are used to getting Prana catalogs in the mail where apparently everyone is a size zero or less. (Come on, already, Prana, get with the program!)

Nike brand workout apparel is generally on the more expensive side, and it is not necessarily because their quality is significantly better. Their workout pants are no exception to this rule.

Lately, you can find cheaper Nike yoga pants, but it depends on the style, color, and size.

A pair of Nike Pro capris on Amazon can run from $20 to $100 depending on the size and color. The $20 is a bit of an anomaly. More likely, you will find a middle ground between the two extremes.

Nike Power training tights (also “yoga pants” on their website) retail for $80. That is a lot for a pair of leggings.

At the higher end, you could get a pair of “Nike Sculpt Lux” pants for $95, but this gets you a nylon lining with polyester/spandex mesh.

It is amazing that they charge you $95 for cheap, synthetic fabric!

Nike yoga pants (aka generic workout leggings) get mostly decent reviews on Amazon, but they aren’t all rave reviews.

Let’s take a look at some generic Nike Pro “women’s capri pants” available in variations of black, grey, and hot pink.

Some people like that the fabric is “light” but then other people are concerned that the fabric is too light, aka cheap.

The worst reviews complain about a lack of durability of the clothing. Some have reported getting holes at the seams after a brief period of wear. One woman reported having a hole in the worst place – her rear end!

That “light” fabric that some people liked can be a definite turn off for others. And it can be blamed for poor durability as well as being too “see-through.”

In looking through the various workout pants by Nike available on Amazon, it appears that the ones who seem to have really high ratings of 4 or more stars on average are the newer listings.

These newer product listings have a high average rating because they have fewer reviews on them. One, in fact, had “5 stars” but only from two reviews.

Nike yoga pants are OK additions to your yoga wardrobe. But they don’t offer any of that special feel-good stuff, literally or metaphysically. That you might get with another yoga-specific brand.

Unlike brands that focus primarily on yoga clothes. Nike is not marketing sustainability in the form of unique fabrics or sourcing.

Nike isn’t selling organic bamboo yoga pants, for example. In fact, much of their workout clothing has a very synthetic, plasticy feel to it.

The entire Nike aesthetic is one of powering through a heavy workout, not relaxing or getting spiritual.

Also, Nike has come under fire in the past for how it treats is employees in other countries. Despite supposedly “turning around its image” over the use of sweatshop labor, Nike is still a massively huge company.

If you are into yoga, you may have a preference for supporting smaller businesses. That really are dedicated to sustainable and fair sourcing. There are tons of boutique yoga clothing startups that won’t cost any more than Nike. But you will feel better about giving them your hard-earned money.

Nike loses when compared to higher-end yoga boutique brands. But what about cheaper brands offering yoga and workout wear?

Having tested a pair of Nike capris, our impression was that they were nothing special. If anything, they were inferior to similar products at Walmart.

The Nike capris did not fit as well, and were inclined to slide down too much in the back. This is not helpful in a yoga class. Where you don’t want to be showing off a plumber’s butt crack to the yogi on the mat behind you.

The material of the Nike capri screamed synthetic. It had a sheen to it almost like pantyhose, and not in a good way.

Walmart usually offers workout capris that run around $7 to $13. These will often come with a drawstring inside. Which you can always take out if you don’t want to use it. Danskin (aka Danskin Now) is one of the brands that Walmart works with. And they offer a very affordable line of yoga clothing.

In fact, you can actually go to Walmart’s website. And order a pair of classic yoga pants from Danskin for $12 on sale (as of this writing).

Walmart offers a good selection of yoga pants and capris in a variety of colors. The fabric is certainly not the high-end bamboo fabric you might find in a posh yoga studio. But compared to Nike, it doesn’t scream synthetic, and you don’t feel like a stuffed sausage wrapped in plastic.

We generally think Nike workout clothes tend to be a bit overpriced for their actual value. Furthermore, since Nike yoga pants are nothing more than generic workout leggings just put into another category. We don’t really see Nike as supporting the yoga community.

Nike loses on both ends. They don’t beat the boutique yoga clothing companies. Such as Beyond Yoga when it comes to materials. They also don’t compete with mainstream cheap brands such as Danskin Now offered at Walmart.

There are many other smaller companies run by real yogis. That create amazing products using truly sustainable materials such as organic bamboo.

In fact, it is really a terrible shame that a company with the resources of a Nike. Would settle for reusing workout pant styles while sticking with bland polyester. Nike could use their resources to find better types of fabric that don’t rely on petroleum, but they do not.

For this reason, we see absolutely no reason to buy Nike yoga pants. Unless you can get them on sale for a really good price.

If you have some money to spend, try a smaller yoga-focused company. We like Beyond Yoga for their soft, cozy, quality material and their commitment to a body positive message.

(Once again, Prana, the yoga company with the smallest models on the planet, and their expensive prices, is the bigger loser here. More so than Nike, even though they have such cute styles.)