We asked amateur boxer Ben Shamoon to try out a set of our Pommello Sweats™. After some fun in the ring, we talked to him about boxing and his initial thoughts after wearing the gear. Here’s what he had to say about his Sweats experience and how he’ll be using our performance wear in his training regiment:

Pommello™:You had a chance to use the gear, how quickly did you feel the heat?

Ben:The heat came really, really quick. I would say within two to three minutes of even just lacing up my shoes, getting the hand-wraps on, uh, you know, even before getting gloves up, I started feeling the warmth.

Pommello™:How does this different than a sauna suit?

Ben:Sauna suits tend to fatigue you. You get basically the same amount of sweat, but with a sauna suit they tend to fatigue you, you feel a little groggy afterwords. Right now, I’m still feeling very warm, very loose, very agile, so my muscles, my ligaments, my tendons, especially after having an injury, um, they feel just great.

Pommello™: How is heat important to boxing?

Ben:I think heat is important not only for boxers but for any athlete, if you don’t have a good warm up, especially with my own background having a serious injury — when I had a dislocated shoulder — it was from not having a proper warmup, so it’s vital. It’s very important for any athlete to have the muscles warmed up and to feel that little bit of a sweat before you compete or even when you’re practicing.

 

Pommello™:How does it feel like it looks on you?

Ben:Aesthetically, I feel like an absolute professional in it. You could go virtually anywhere. If I’m at the gym, at a regular fitness club, wearing a sauna suit is very, very unappealing, so you have people looking at you funny. Whereas, if you’re wearing this I feel like if I were to walk into any fitness club, if I were to walk into a mall even, people would look at me and think: Oh, you look sharp. What is he wearing?

So, aesthetically, it’s beautiful. I mean the proof is in the pudding, look how it looks.

Pommello™:What are the disadvantages to wearing a sauna suit?

Ben:In a sauna suit where, you know, I could be hitting a bag or hitting pads with my trainer and my sweat is flying in my trainer’s face or all over the bag or all over the floor, and I’m slipping and falling, you know, which could cause injury, but more or less it’s just not comfortable to have sweat going all over the place. In [the Sweats], when I take it off I can already feel the sweat just absorbed in [the gear], and once I take it off I know it’s just going to come right out. It’s wonderful.

Pommello™:Have you ever ripped any sauna suits?

Ben:Absolutely, I’ve ripped probably every sauna suit I’ve ever owned. I’ve been buying sauna suits since I was 14 years old, so I went through quite a few getting ready for amateur fights. I’ve had to cut weight quite a few times, and I’ve ripped a tone of them. This is very, very durable. It feels fantastic, and you can tell this is not going anywhere any time soon.

Pommello™:What do you like about the Sweats?

Ben: Some of my favorite things about it is just how comfortable to wear while training. I think a lot of the problems with athletes is that we make sudden movements, in boxing is a lot like dancing, you have your foot movement, your lateral movement, your hands are moving, everything moving in congruence with one another, so comfortability is a huge factor, you know, you can move, you can breath. I’m not feeling over exerted to the point where you feel like: Oh my gosh, I’m going to faint. It’s by far the most comfortable set of training gear, period, that I’ve ever worn, let alone something that will actually help me sweat.