cheap yoga mats

Eventually, anybody who practices Yoga considers buying a yoga mat.  People choose to get their own yoga mat for many reasons: you can get one with an appearance that matches your own unique personality (c'mon guys you know you feel silly using the pink ones at the gym!), it offers you better support because you've custom ordered one that has the right firmness, thickness, and dimensions, and you won't have to worry about hygiene.  I don't know about you but I always feel a little icky at first posing on a mat that's been used by god-knows-who.  What you may not be aware of is that some mats cost up to $100 while regular ones are in the $20-$30 range.  Are the higher quality Yoga mats worth the extra cash?  What about cheap yoga mats?  Are they bad?

Believe it or not, for many people, purchasing cheap Yoga mats is a good decision.  Let me explain.

Many Yoga studios have cheap yoga mats made of PVC, while only a handful have decided to invest in high-quality rubber/latex or other natural material mats.  And there's a good reason for them using the PVC mats.  Cheap PVC mats provide adequate thickness, plenty of stability, are of a suitable width and length, wash without trouble, are resistant to bacteria (because they have closed-cells at the microscopic level) and they are light weight (the natural latex/rubber mats weigh a ton!).

You want to put some serious thought into how often you are going to do yoga and how many times per week you are going to attend class.  Keep in mind, as mentioned previously, that expensive mats are heavy and require regular cleaning and other conditioning.  Obviously, you don't want to have to throw away an expensive mat, so understand that when you buy an expensive one, you are committing yourself to taking care of it.  With cheap yoga mats, you don't have to worry about washing them or maintaining.  You simply use it for a few months, and then throw it away.  They provide plenty of adequate stability and support and are lightweight so they fit easily into almost any yoga bag for easy carrying to and from class.

The major downside to cheap yoga mats is that there are some disadvantages to the material they are made out of.  Cheap yoga mats are usually made of PVC, which is non-biodegradable, toxic, and has a distinct odor for the first few weeks.  If you are going to use PVC, it's environmentally conscious for you to recycle as it takes many years to decompose at landfills. 

Recently, Yoga equipment companies have begun to use more environmentally friendly materials such as PER which is a polymer that decomposes easily but still has PVC-like physical properties.  This allows for us to use a biodegradable material while keeping material costs low and allowing cheap, good quality, yoga mats to be produced. 

Before purchasing a yoga mat, consider one of the cheaper alternatives before assuming more expensive is better.  You may just find that you can save money without sacrificing a ton of quality!