Ten Thousand Shorts Review 2026: The Best Workout Shorts

It’s tough to stand out among the deluge of activewear brands on IG, but you might’ve noticed these shorts—either on your feed or in your gym—with a giant white X on the back. Those are Ten Thousand’s shorts. And while I can’t say my personal exercise ethos fully meshes with the brand’s slightly aggro presentation—more on that in a moment—I can say that I’ve tried (and liked) five different models of its workout shorts over the years, particularly the Interval Short. There’s a lot to love, though much of the value depends on how much you’re willing to pay for gym shorts.

Ten Thousand

Interval Short

What’s the Deal With That Branding?

As a brand, the advertising has it aligned with the all-black-wearing CrossFit guy who probably listens to Andrew Huberman, has a stack of supplements he takes daily, talks about ice plunges and saunas to anyone who will listen, and takes lifting heavy things and motion is medicine as life maxims. There’s strong through-line of Spartan hustle porn. (I’d bet at least one Ten Thousand VP has “better than yesterday” in their email signature.) Ten Thousand’s ex-military vibes are not incidental, and it even makes a “military grade” short called the Tactical Short, designed in a partnership with the U.S. Special Operations Forces. No, the brand doesn’t make anything labeled as being for women.

Literally zero of that is for me. Nevertheless, Ten Thousand makes the best workout shorts I’ve worn in the 20 years I’ve been lifting weights—full stop. Over the past few years, I’ve picked up pairs of the Foundation, Session, Set, Distance, and Interval shorts, and I sort of hate how much better they are for working out than anything I’ve owned from Nike, Under Armour, Adidas, or Patagonia. Each of Ten Thousand’s shorts is dialed in for a specific activity, though the best-selling Interval is the closest to a do-it-all gym short, and the pair I use the most.

That’s because it sits neatly in the center of the Ten Thousand shorts Venn Diagram: nearly as durable as the heavy-duty Foundation shorts, almost as lightweight as the barely-there Session shorts, and the perfect amount of stretch to go for continent-spanning lunges or calf-to-thigh, ass-to-grass front squats without worrying about blowing them out. According to Jae Lee, Ten Thousand’s design and materials sourcing director, they’re not just the brand’s “bread and butter short,” they’ve been its single best-seller since their debut in 2018. That tracks with my experience.