Wedgies, Sweaty Legs, and (Minimal) Chafing: My Week Working Out in Jeans

MOST GUYS PICK the most comfortable clothing they can for their workouts. Scope out your gym or open your phone to scroll for #fitspo, and you’ll see bodies covered in stretchy, breathable materials in various iterations, from shorts to leggings to joggers. But there’s a new (and slightly weird) trend I’ve been seeing lately: A host of guys wearing pairs of blue jeans (yes, really) to work out in the gym.

There was a wave of media coverage last year around RFK Jr. cosplaying working class attire while doing pullups in dungarees. It’s not just a MAHA thing either. Brands are responding to a demand for denim activewear, from fashion-forward running brand Satisfy’s shorts printed to look like a light wash to companies like Born Primitive selling actual spandex-infused jorts made for the gym (a top wardrobe choice for the type of contrarian fitness guy who pairs his rants against mainstream training practices with unconventional outfits). There are also some truly impressive jean guys, like Truett Hanes, a ridiculously shredded athlete and Guinness World Record-holder, who has run a marathon PR of 2:34:45—40 minutes faster than my own respectable time of 3:15:17—while wearing denim pants (and as he clarifies in Instagram posts, a head-to-toe application of anti-chafe cream).

The way guys are wearing blue jeans for exercise sometimes strikes me a bit of an extra performative effort to go against the grain. Generally, I think people should be encouraged to wear whatever they want, from leggings to short shorts as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else. I’m sure there are some men out there who are walking straight from their 9 to 5 (or even taking a break in the middle of it) to train without changing their pants—and for some guys, their financial situation might mean working out in jeans is the only option. But someone choosing to wear jeans in the gym just . . . bothers me. Hard pants aren’t ideal for squats, and I suspect a good number of the people who lift in them know that. They just choose to signal they’re too rugged, tough, or busy to slip on a pair of sweats, performance be damned.

When I shared my disdain for jeans in the gym during a recent MH brainstorm, fitness director Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S., told me I was being closed-minded—and issued a challenge: I should train for a week wearing jeans for all my workouts, proving whether denim is a wholly impractical choice or not.

My Week of Workouts in Blue Jeans

Before diving in, I connected with Hanes for some insight. He first raced in jeans for charity—but then continued wearing them. “I kept wearing the jeans because honestly, they don’t slow me down too much,” he wrote in an email. “I’ve gotten flack for ‘disrespecting the running community’ by running in jeans, but I don’t understand the criticism. If the whole point of racing is to go fast, then what’s the issue?”

Hanes has a point—and if you’ve watched a major road race, you may have seen a guy in a banana costume or dressed up as Forrest Gump in the crowd. No one seems to give them guff—so why draw the line at jeans? Hanes isn’t flexing on anyone; he’s just running and raising some money. “The biggest takeaway is if you want to get something done then you don’t need the perfect circumstance or the perfect gear,” Hanes said. “Make it happen—and if it happens to be in jeans, then even better.”

I was immediately more sympathetic to denim workouts, but I still had to experience them. I ditched all my pairs that weren’t 100 percent cotton a few years back as I transitioned away from the slim and skinny cut silhouettes and adopted a looser fit. So I wouldn’t be wearing any spandex-infused stretchy jeans. In addition, I’d wear proper shoes and activewear up top, with compression shorts underneath. If the pants needed it, I wore a belt. I alternated between six pairs of long pants and one pair of cutoff jorts over six days.

Here’s what it was like to train in jeans for a whole week.

Workout 1: 4-Mile Run

I started off my week of jeans with an evening run after work, sticking to my typical schedule. It was a chilly, wet evening. I put on an old pair of Levi’s 560s with a loose fit and tapered leg. I’d have worn a pair of running shorts or leggings that allowed for better movement (with much less risk of chafing) if I weren’t leaning into this.

Usually, I have little shame stepping beyond sartorial norms—but I was nervous about how oblivious to convention I would look jogging. I live in a densely populated neighborhood, so I knew I would be seen as I ran down the sidewalk. But by the time I finished the first mile surrounded by other people, I realized something I should have known much sooner: No one was looking at me at all. My social anxiety calmed, and I became much more confident of my place in the world.

Physically, I’ve had better runs. I think jeans might have been the worst possible option for the weather. They felt heavy, and seemed to sop up some of the moisture, and I had to adjust my stride and pull the waistband up briefly to address some bunching at the crotch. I thought back to Hanes and his anti-chafe cream and nightmare stories from friends with thicker thighs—but thankfully there was no sign of chafing after I finished the four-mile route.

My time actually wasn’t too bad, either. I was below the 8-minute pace I aim for slow training runs at 7:42 per mile. Considering that the jeans clocked in at about three pounds heavier than my typical outfit, that’s almost impressive—and if I were really masochistic, I could keep jogging in wet denim to add some resistance to my runs, like a weight vest for my legs. And yes, I’m exploring the patent for that now.

Day 2: Gym Leg Day Workout

That Day 1 run dispelled most of my nerves about looking goofy. I knew Day 2 wouldn’t be bad either, because I would be in a private gym. Translation: I didn’t have to deal with any weird looks from fellow patrons once I approached the squat rack in my vintage relaxed-fit Levi’s 540s. These pants fit me a bit loosely, so I wore a belt (no, not a weight belt) and I rolled the bottoms into a cuff.

I started my warmup, and I was immediately faced with the biggest challenge of exercising in a pair of jeans: They just . . . aren’t activewear. As I shifted my leg forward into the world’s greatest stretch, I couldn’t step up as far as I needed to really feel it. These jeans have a lower crotch than I’d usually like to train in, and the thick material didn’t have much give. As I moved on to my first working set, heavy back squats, I was nervous about how much range of motion the jeans would allow—and whether the denim could take all that weight without tearing like SpongeBob’s ripped pants.

Before I put the bar on my back, I worked through a few tentative air squats. Not so bad—the fabric was loose enough that I could get my butt down to depth. As I progressed up to a triple at 315 pounds, I could still get as low as I needed, with only a slight bit of tugging at the knees. I continued through the rest of the session, moving through step-ups, goblet squats, and V-ups without major issues.

Issues from the jeans, that is. The belt buckle was another story: It dug into my belly during goblet squats when I paused in the bottom position. After the first set, I took it off. But no, on the last two sets, I didn’t have any wardrobe malfunctions. Problem solved.

One major drawback: I was much warmer than I would have liked to be before I even had the chance to elevate my heart rate, so my legs were hot and sweaty. And I just didn’t love the baggy cut of these jeans when I bent and squatted. Maybe a pair of skinny jeans would have fared better. Or maybe that have ended like SpongeBob.

Day 3: Gym Upper Body Workout

An upper body-focused push day was next on the docket, so my pants, another pair of older, baggier Levi’s, weren’t going to affect me as much as the day before. It dawned on me too: maybe guys who work out in jeans just skip leg day as much as possible since jeans work for upper day. I worked through heavy barbell bench press, overhead press, pullups, and plank shoulder-taps and was never slowed—but I did have to pull the thicker fabric up when it sagged and adjust my waistband a whole lot more than I do in typical gym shorts. And again, I got sweaty early. Not ideal.

For extra conditioning, I finished with shadow kickboxing. And here, I felt the pants’ limitations. Swinging my legs felt okay, but I couldn’t kick as high as I could in athletic shorts. I took off my shirt too, and not just because of sweat: Samuel said I had to lean all the way in to the RFK of it all and pop the top, too.

But three days of denim caught up with me in the locker room: I realized I was starting to chafe on my inner thigh. Thankfully, this wasn’t painful enough to ruin my day. It also wasn’t comfortable.

Day 4: Workwear Gym Workout

I’ll say this about jeans (and my time spent on manual labor jobs has proven this, too): They were created for work when Levi Strauss first put rivets on denim pants back in the 1870s, and they’re still worn on job sites today. Maybe they do make sense to train in, since they can stand up to serious rigors. That may be extra-true for my Carhartt double-knee jeans, actual workwear—and which I wore on deadlift day. These pants are heavy, and stiff, too. I put them on and headed down to the gym in my office building—and after four days of training in jeans, I didn’t care who saw me.

I worked through a deadlifts up to 315, and get this: the jeans were helpful. If you’ve ever barbell deadlifted with good form and heavy weight, you know the bar should be close enough to your body to scrape the shins (sometimes bloodying them, and that’s happened to me, too). But in my denim armor, I barely felt the bar against my lower legs at all.

But jeans giveth, and jeans taketh away. The tougher material that was so great for deadlifts wound up being a major hangup when I moved on to kettlebell lateral lunges, which demand greater mobility. Every time I tried to bend down with my leg extended, the fabric bunched up in the crotch. I had to reposition and shake the material down my leg to hit full depth.

Just for fun (and a few photos—and extra rest time), I changed quickly to a pair of cutoff jorts. I repeated the two exercises, and wasn’t exactly as comfortable—but that’s more because I was worried about splitting my pants and showing the entire gym my butt.

Because while the jorts stayed intact (thankfully!), whenever you wear jeans, you’re staving off that SpongeBob moment.

Day 5: The Final Jeans Workout?

I wanted to up the ante for my final workout and go for a different feel than all the other pairs of pants I had tried. So that Saturday, I put on an old pair of Dickies overalls I’ve not had enough guts to wear outside my yard, then loaded up the barbell for some heavy deadlifts.

If you haven’t worn a pair of overalls since grade school, you might forget just how connected the bottom is to the top. I tightened the shoulder straps before my set, hinged at the waist to grab the bar—and boom, gave myself a wedgie. The fit took some fiddling: I eventually loosened the straps worked all the way up to 405 pounds feeling mostly good in the outfit (which was, of course, my priority). Eventually, I locked in, and the denim tugging up into my butt was something I just needed to ignore.

That pull was even more pronounced as I moved through lunges. I wasn’t totally restricted in my movements, but I wasn’t comfortable. The overalls weren’t going to ruin my workout—but I think they helped me to codify my thoughts on the experiment. I finished with some hanging leg raises and finally unclipped the straps. Wedgie eliminated, at long last.

The Takeaways

I won’t lie: Training in jeans went better than expected. I did almost everything I set out to do. And I guess that makes sense: Jeans are made for labor, so they need to be comfy enough to survive a full day, and durable enough to take a pounding.

Not that I’m going to make denim workouts a habit. There are just too many better options, pants and shorts made from synthetic materials that wick sweat and flow freely. I think of my training gear as a uniform, and aside from the way jeans protect my shins when deadlifting, other gear is better for the task.

But I do better understand why some have made jeans their go-to workout kit. I was being closed-minded, and not extending the same grace to one group of exercisers that I would to others (and myself). Clothing and self-presentation can be intensely personal—and if your jorts help you to get amped for your AMRAP, why not rock what you want? Just make sure that you’re within your gym’s dress code and go forth, empowered and draped in denim (or anything else you want).

Jeans (and More) to Wear for Workouts

All the jeans I wore for my workouts were bought second-hand—but these picks from brands that make clothes that blur the line between active and casual wear are great picks if you want to introduce some denim to your workouts. If you’re not ready to sweat in your jeans, there are also some of our favorite selections to sweat in, no matter the dress code.