If you ask my wife, I have a taste for the finer things. This is only the case though when a higher priced product has exceptional quality and lasts much longer than cheaper alternatives. But to pay $20 or more for a pair of shorts, I still have a hard time justifying that. Especially when I can find a decent option at Ross for $10.
So, when it comes to shorts that are $60 or more like these, they have to be leaps and bounds better than the rest.
Thankfully, after spending many months and 100+ miles trying different kinds, I eventually found my all-time favorite running shorts; the Nike Stride shorts. They’re usually $60 or more, but thankfully you can find plenty of sales where these are discounted to $30-$40 or less.
BUT, at the start of the year I saw that Nike had these new “Flex Stride” shorts, and since they were 30% off, I had to try them out. Could Nike out do themselves with these shorts?
The Back Pocket
There are only 2 key differences between the Stride shorts and the Flex Stride shorts, and the back pocket is number one. From the first time I put these on, I thought Nike made some solid improvements. For example, they moved the opening from the top of the pocket to the right side. Surprisingly, this makes it much easier to get your belongings in and out.
Plus, the pocket is bigger, so it fits any sized phone.
Sadly, that’s where the positives end. Because of the location of the zipper pocket, I hoped this would eliminate any jabbing in the lower back when doing core workouts. Technically this did happen, but that’s only because the painful poking moved from the middle of lower back to the right side of my back waist.
Even though the bigger size pocket is nice at first, there’s way more bouncing and pulling on the back of the shorts. So much so, that on my first run it felt like the lip of the waistband was being pulled down, and the top of my butt was repeatedly peeking through. I tried to remedy this by tying the waistband tighter, but this only helped the waistband from being pulled down so much with each stride.
Eventually I got used to the excessive jumping of my phone, but it’s still a pain to tie my shorts so sizes to prevent this..
The Brief Lining
When I started running with the normal Nike Stride shorts, I had to get used to the short cut of the compression short lining. (This only took a day.) And coming back to the longer length cut of the lining with these shorts felt nice. Until long distance runs.
My first run in these was 14 miles, and by mile 8 they started to chaff around my groin. It wasn’t as bad as the Nathan Front Runner 3.0 shorts, but it’s still not what you want from any pair of running shorts. I hoped this would go away on future runs, and my skin would adjust. Sadly, this uncomfortable rubbing continued even after 38+ miles in them.
The Recap
Obviously, Nike will continue to improve and out do themselves, but in this case, the regular Nike Stride shorts perform much better than their Flex Stride shorts. You might experience something different, so if you prefer the longer length design of the compression lining, then pick up a pair and try them out. Or, if your runs range from 3-5 miles most days, then you might not get to the point where the chaffing starts.
We’re all different, so you might really like these. But for now, I’m holding off and sticking with the Stride shorts.
the flex stride is more stretchy than the strides?
The Nike Flex Stride shorts have a slightly stretchier outer material. While the different length interior compression shorts are the same. The Nike Flex Stride shorts are flat and clean like most exercise shorts, while the Stride shorts have a grid-like texture.