A reader recently asked me about Intelliskin’s Posture Shirt, wondering if I had tried it yet. Fact was, I hadn’t even heard about it yet, so thanks to Sandra for bringing it to my attention.
Intelliskin’s posture improving product line consists of products for both men and women.
For the women, they have a posture bra, as well as women’s short and long sleeve posture shirt.
For the men, Intelliskin offers a posture muscle shirt (though they call it a tank), as well as short and long sleeve athletic posture shirts.
Now one thing that is interesting, is that the product line looks a lot like the Posture Shirts from Alignmend. Come to find out that the founder of Intelliskin, Dr. Tim Brown, used to work for Alignmed! Now man, would I love to hear the back story on that.
At around $95 per, Intelliskin is priced a hair less expensive than Alignmend, and considering the design, I’d suspect they perform about the same.
I reached out to the company a bit back, but I haven’t heard back from them. If I learn more, I’ll post the updates here.
If you’ve tried Intelliskin, let me know what you think of them!
I think it’s a waste of money. I bought this shirt a little more than a year ago and the material in the back and shoulder blade area are tearing apart. This shirt is only good for about a year. For the money I would expect it to last a lot longer.
heya james, thanks for stopping by my site and posting your comments about intelliskin. sorry that your intelliskin shirt is coming apart.
have you contacted the company to see if they would offer any kind of reduced priced replacement?? i would say if the item is coming apart at the seams, they may be willing to do something.
if the fabric is tearing, it might be hard for them to do anything since they don’t know what type of use and care the shirt has had.
if you want to take some photos, send them to me and i’ll post them here and let itelliskin know about it and see if they’re willing to assist you.
you mentioned you had both the intelliskin foundation 2.0 and the PostureCue V-Tee.
Could you tell me is you notice more posture correction from the 2.0 or if they both feel the same?
About to order and would like the one with the most posture support but prefer the v-neck style.
thanks.
Alignmed went up in price drastically
alfonso, i don’t recall noticing much/if any posture difference between the two products. though, the company seems to recommend posturecue for daily-wear and foundation for more aggressive athletic-wear.
in looking at the fabric blends:
posturecue (78% Nylon/22% Spandex)
foundation (56% Nylon / 44% Lycra Power)
you could say that the foundation should give you a little more correction, but again, i don’t recall noticing anything that different.
Hey for those of you that have the alignmed shirt can u describe the differences between the cotton and poly blend? Thanks
I do not have the cotton, but can say that the poly blend is very similar to standard lycra/spandex type material. It has a slight cooling effect. It is stretchy and silky like an Under Armour shirt. The cotton is supposed to be more like a standard cotton white T-Shirt. I would imagine the support bands are the same on both types.
When I asked alignmed support they said if you are doing anything athletic to go poly blend, as it is better at keeping you cool and deterring odor. They said if you were using for daily, not athletic use that it was just personal preference. If you like a standard cotton shirt or under armour type material.
Thanks,
Dave
heya b. — i’d say go with the poly blend alignmed posture shirt. i have both, and prefer the feel of the poly one.
the cotton posture shirt is kinda marketed for “daily wear”, but honestly it’s the exact same shirt in a cotton blend fabric that, coupled with the support bands that seem to be slightly different, doesn’t quite feel as nice on my skin as the poly posture shirt does. frankly, i find the poly posture shirt to be more comfortable than the cotton one and i would even choose it over the cotton one in a daily-wear scenario. though neither really seem to be best suited specifically for daily wear. i could envision a completely different design for a true daily wear application.
also as dave says, the poly posture shirt has a slight cooling effect to it and the cotton one does not.
Thanks for the input! I appreciate it!
Any update on the comparison review. I’m looking to either get an Alignmed EBA posture shirt or one of the intelliskin shirts. It looks like Alignmed only has 1 shirt but in different varieties (Cotton, Spandex, Zippered.) However intelliskin seems to have multiple shirt styles (V Neck Tee, Foundation 2.0, Long sleeve, tank, etc etc)
However intelliskin’s youtube videos have me a bit concerned. They seem to indicate the shirt will cause pain until your body adjusts an to only wear it an hour or 2 a day to start with.
I’m just looking for a posture support shirt to wear under my work clothes, so I’m not sure if intelliskin might be a little overkill and designed more for athletes.
The 2 brands seem very similar. At almost $100 per shirt, I’d like to get the scoop about pros and cons of each before ordering.
heya dave,
dunno when i’ll be able to set aside the time to do a comparison review (i’m super backlogged!), but i can give you a little direction.
from a pure posture improvement or performance point of view, the intellikin and alignmed products perform identical (to me at least). no mistaking, these shirts to a great job in pulling your shoulders back and keeping you standing more upright.
from a fit pov, again pretty much the same.
the biggest difference i noticed was in the feel/comfort of the fabric. i felt the alignmed posture shirt was a bit more comfortable, smoother feeling on the skin than the intelliskin. intelliskin felt a little itchy right out of the package. not so bad that it caused any discomfort, but enough for me to notice it when i put it on. i haven’t done a post-wash wear yet, but i’ll try to do that when i go to the gym today.
mind you, i’m super critical and uber-aware how an undershirt or t-shirt feels on me. so you might not notice any difference whatsoever.
if i were to make a recommendation between the two, i’d recommend going with the one that was less expensive because they both perform equally well.
hope that information helps. let me know what you decide on and what you think of it!!
Thanks for the quick feedback. I emailed both companies with a list of questions. Alignmed responded, still waiting on intelliskin. Based on your notes above and the fact they answered my questions, I’m leaning heavily toward the alignmed.
The only thing I don’t love is that all of Alignmed’s shirts are now v-neck. It looks like they used to have crew neck but no longer for sale in their store.
I sent them a follow up email just to verify this before ordering. I’d prefer crew neck if possible, but I could probably live with v-neck.
I’ll let you know once place and receive my order.
Thanks again for the advice,
Dave
heya dave, so i’ve got my intelliskin posture shirt on right now, post wash (pre workout), and there’s still some itchiness. seems less pronounced than at first wearing, but it’s still there.
i also was reminded of two other things:
1. due to the stitching and sleeve design, there some moderate pinching in the front underarm area. i think it’s ok for me wearing it to the gym, but if i had to wear it all day long, it might be a little uncomfortable.
2. the short sleeves are kinda long, so they peek out from under my short sleeve t-shirt i have over it. if you’re wearing short sleeve shirts a lot, the intelliskin sleeves might be too long.
now keep in mind i haven’t gone back to my alignmed posture shirt to see if it has any of these characteristics, so take the above simply as information and not necessarily how it compares to alignmed.
i’ll try back on my alignmed posture shirt after my workout and we’ll see what i notice. stay tuned!
Thanks for the update. I look forward to your advice.
Out of curiosity, which shirt do you have from each vendor?
dave, i’ll get back to you with additional details. i have both the long sleeve foundation and posturecue from intelliskin. i believe i’m wearing a white v-neck posturecue, but let me try on all of them to be sure.
on the alignmed, i have both the polyblend and cotton.
heya dave, so i wore the alignmed posture shirt to the gym to day and do have to say it’s a good deal more comfortable as i remembered. there is a tiny bit of underarm pinching, but it’s much less prominent than what i personally experienced with intelliskin.
the sleeves on alignmed are shorter too, so they were not longer than my short sleeve shirt (the same one i wore with intelliskin).
i took a closer look and i think some of the comfort differences are due to the “bands” that help make the posture shirts what they are. the intelliskin uses an open mesh fabric that stretches some, and alignmed uses a smooth fabric that does not stretch. i think the mesh is just scratchier on the skin. maybe the stitching has to do with it too, but can’t say that definitively.
without any doubt the intelliskin and alignmed posture shirts do exactly what they are designed for, but i personally found the alignmed posture shirt to be more comfortable and pleasing to wear.
now i can’t say from a per technical perspective whether or not the mesh stretch bands on the intelliskin perform better than the smooth bands on alignmed, but subjectively, they felt about the same to me.
hope all this helps you!
Thanks! Looks like I’ll be going with Alignmed. Thanks again for all of your help and comparison.
Wow. I just noticed Alignmed raised the price of their basic pullover shirt to $125.00. They are really proud of them. It was already really really expensive at $100/shirt. I could only buy 1 and was hoping to pick up more if they had another buy 2 get 1 free sale. But I think $125/shirt is a bit crazy. I’m not sure how much better they are than the intelliskins, but at a cost for 25%+ higher they better be noticeably better. This is their standard posture v-neck, now renamed Align LITE. I shutter to think what they will be charging for their new MyLign shirts.
wowzers dave. they really pushed up the price of their posture shirts!
from a pure performance pov, intelliskin and alignmed perform about the same. though, i can say that the alignmed posture shirt had fabric that was more comfortable.
heya dave, just got this feedback from another reader. figured i’d add it here for everyone’s benefit:
Thanks for the feedback. I finally received my Alignmed shirt last night. I am wearing it to work for the first time today. So far so good. It is a little snug under the arms as most people say, but it isn’t terribly uncomfortable. I think I can get used to it.
I can tell a difference already. When I am walking I find my posture is much better. I can’t tell as much when I am sitting at my desk typing but that might just be due to focusing on other things. Even at my desk I feel like my shoulders aren’t rolling forward as much as they did previously.
Thanks again for the advice and review. I will update again once I have worn the shirt for a while.
My first impression is fairly positive.
Ok, I have been wearing then alignmed shirt almost every day since receiving it on 3/20. I have gotten used to the shirt and as suspected, the underarms do not really both me anymore. being spandex, it does occasionally bunch under my street clothes, but this is easy to fix.
At first, the shirt was different and I found myself constantly standing very straight with good posture. Some of this is likely due to me being aware I was wearing the shirt.
Now, a few weeks later I do not feel the shirt as much and my posture is probably more natural. I don’t think it makes my posture perfect, and it is certainly possible to still stand or sit however I want. However, I think it does at least help my posture. My wife has commented that she can tell a difference.
Also, on the weekends when I have been walking around town or working outside I do notice at the end of the day that the middle of my back is tight. I believe this is simply due to the shirt helping me hold my posture. Until the back muscles strengthen I think I will be able to have a sore back after standing for long periods. This is good however, as I know the muscles are getting stronger.
It can be a bit deceptive, as you get used to the shirt and no longer “feel” the correction. But the difference is immediately obvious when I am not wearing the shirt. On evenings when I am washing the alignmed shirt, I can certainly tell that my body is trying to hold the correct posture. It is more difficult without the shirt so I can feel it in my back muscles. After awhile, when my back muscles get tired I can feel the posture degrade and it is not as comfortable.
Overall I am pleased. I am still trying to evaluate over the next month or 2. If I continue to see improvement maybe I will get lucky and they will have a sale. At $100 a pop, I can’t buy too many of them at a time.
They do dry very quickly. So when I wash it in the evening it is usually dry by the next morning.
I do wish they still sold it in the crew neck. I typically wear another undershirt over it because I don’t like the feel of vnecks.
If I come across a good deal, or see one on ebay I might still try the intelliskin just to compare. However based on your advice and several others, it appears the Alignmed is more comfortable. I can at least confirm that the alignmed is comfortable to wear 12+ hours a day as an undershirt.
Hope this helps anyone else looking.
Like the Intelliskin posture, but very itchy due to very large internal seams and many of them. Much more comfortable when worn inside out, but then the seams show through your outer shirt. I’m wondering if the Alignmend shirt is the same in this regard.
heya jeff, thanks for taking the time to post a comment here about intelliskin.
i’ve tried both alignmed and intelliskin. i’m still formulating my opinion about intelliskin, but during my initial wear test, i did feel it was not as comfortable as i hoped it would be, and pinched a little in my underarm area.
i don’t recall having that experience with alignmed’s product, so i’ll have to try them both on again, one after the other, and try to make a fair side-by-side comparison.
the primary difference between the products is the material that’s used in the construction of the garment. if my memory serves me correctly, the fabric on alignmed felt a bit smoother.
i’ll do another wear test soon and post some additional thoughts here.