Product Review: SLS3 / SLSTRI Compression Socks

In today’s review we’ve got SLS3 (SLSTRI) – a team dedicated to triathletes .  

As we’re all aware, I have a crazy soft spot for companies with a good story and SLS3 hits it out of the park.  Are you ready for this?  SLS3 Literally started when 2 professional German triathletes met, fell in love, and started a small company together.  Dead serious.  Beat that!

So, after falling in love and starting a new company together, 9 years later they are a thriving world renowned company making top of the line compression gear.

Today, we’re taking a look at their FXC Compression Socks

I tested these socks in several different ways (running, recovery [sleep], Crossfit [rope climbs]).

On my first run the socks felt great, stayed put, with no bunching, sliding, rolling, etc.  They fit tight, but not restrictively (I Loved that they were compression based all the way around the foot), excellent ‘second skin’ feel.  The socks weren’t too hot, no hot spots or sweating.

I slept in the socks after a couple of hard days and had excellent results in diminishing DOMS and no ill effects from long term dormant wear (no tingling, no cutting lines from the compression, etc.)

For the Crossfit workouts they performed amazingly well!  I use calf sleeves or compression socks on rope climb days and put these through the paces on a 10 ascent day.  After 10 15’ ascents they had not only done an excellent job of protecting my shins/calves, they also showed No signs of wear at all from gripping and sliding up and down that rough rope – no loose fibers, abrasions, nothing!

This picture shows the ‘wear’ mark on the socks after using them for a month of rope climbs:

Also worth noting, I washed the socks and saw No change in elasticity/compression or fit.

Lastly, looks obviously have nothing to do with performance but…. 

These things look like a formula 1 race car – they really do look awesome!  The piping and attention to detail, while not helping their function, is really cool (there… I said it).