Knee Sleeves Neopren 7mm (Pair)

Down in the hole, when you want to come back up

Working set of back squats, the weight is where it asks something of you. You go down, hold the tension for a moment – and right there, deep in the bottom, the set is decided. Seven millimetres of neoprene give you noticeable push-back as you open out of that flexion again. Then there is the warmth: your knee is warm from the first set instead of cold, and you notice that most in the winter months, or when too much time passes between your warm-up and the heavy set.

Straight with you: the thicker the neoprene, the more you feel it on the way down too. For heavy sets with few reps, that is exactly the point. For a metcon with 100 air squats, or a long mixed session, 7 mm is more than you need – there you are more comfortable in the thinner version. A sleeve also replaces neither technique nor proper warm-up work. It gives you compression and warmth, nothing more – and that is precisely the job.

The same sleeve as the 5 mm version, only thicker

We are not inventing a difference that is not there: the 7 mm and the 5 mm are built identically, they differ in material thickness. Black neoprene, contoured seams – the curved shaping seams pre-form the bend of the knee so the sleeve does not run into folds when you flex. The edges are bound, the white cross equip logo sits low on the outside, and a woven logo band runs along the inner hem. And: you get a pair, not a single sleeve.

On competition we talk straight, because a lot of nonsense circulates here. The IPF rulebook allows sleeves up to a maximum of 7 mm – so these sit exactly on the limit, not above it. The IPF additionally runs a list of manufacturers it has vetted, and we are not on it. The measurement alone is therefore not enough for an IPF start. In weightlifting under IWF rules there is no such manufacturer list; neoprene sleeves without buckles or reinforcements are no issue there. And in CrossFit the question does not even come up – there is no equipment list.

Which size fits you?

Measuring works differently here than with most sleeves, so read this bit: stand up, put one leg forward and bend the knee to roughly 20 degrees. In that position you run the tape around the middle of the knee – the mid-knee circumference. Then look for that number in the table:

The ranges overlap at the boundary values: land exactly on 33, 35, 37 or 40 cm and you have two sizes to choose from.

One more thing if you have been wearing another model until now: the measuring point moves from line to line. On these sleeves the tape runs around the mid-knee circumference; on the Sticky Sleeves and on every Rehband model it sits 10 cm below the kneecap. Same leg, two different numbers. An M from one line is therefore nowhere near an M in the other, however familiar the letter looks. Put the tape on fresh for this pair instead of copying your old size across.