You planned the session properly. Shoes laced, water bottle filled, gym bag packed the night before. You even picked the right shorts. Everything you wear to the gym gets thought about: the tee, the track pants, the socks that don't slip. There's one thing nobody thinks about.
The one thing sitting closest to your skin, going through every rep with you. You don't think about your underwear until you're three sets in, mid-squat, and it rides up. You adjust, casually, like you didn't just break your entire focus between reps. Twenty seconds later, same thing. You look around. Nobody else seems bothered. And that's because nobody ever talks about this. They deal with it, every session, and call it normal. It isn't.
Your Underwear Is the Weakest Link in Your Workout Kit
Regular cotton underwear is built for one thing: daily wear. Not for summer days in a packed gym, not for your 3-4 sets of squats and lunges, and definitely not for the kind of sweat that soaks through before you've hit rep 10.
Cotton absorbs moisture and holds it against your skin. So by the time you're mid-session, you're essentially working out with a wet layer trapped against your body. The friction follows. The bunching follows. The constant mid-set adjustment follows. And none of that has anything to do with how hard you're training. It's the gym underwear that's failing.
The fix isn't a different brand of the same thing. It's a completely different fabric. And the most obvious way you feel that failure? Mid-squat, when it creeps.
So, Why Does the Ride-Up Actually Happen?
Ride-up happens when your underwear doesn't allow the right movement. You lunge forward, the fabric pulls. You squat deep, it creeps. The leg hem bunches and suddenly you're mid-set, hands nowhere near the bar, fixing something that should not need fixing.
The answer isn't just "stretchy" fabric. While ordinary stretch offers limited flexibility, the 4-way stretch in XYXX’s Tactel underwear moves in all direction, which is exactly how your body moves during a set. It is engineered for this, so the fabric goes where you go, with zero resistance. Your gym shorts move when you squat. When you go into a Romanian deadlift or a deep Bulgarian split squat, 4-way stretch means the fabric follows your body instead of pulling against it. No pull. No ride-up.
XYXX Tactel Trunks have the contoured pouch, which means it's shaped around your anatomy so everything stays in place during the full range of motion. You're not just getting stretch fabric; you're getting underwear designed around how the body actually moves through a set.
Solve the movement and what's left is what the fabric does when the sweat actually starts.
Sweat Is Inevitable. Staying Soaked Isn't.
Picture a Bengaluru gym in June. Humid before you've even changed, and you're already four exercises down. Cotton underwear stopped being useful about ten minutes ago. It absorbed your sweat in round one and it's been sitting wet against your skin ever since. That moisture doesn't evaporate. It just builds, and the more it builds, the worse everything gets.
This is where fabric makes a real difference. XYXX Tactel Underwear is made from 92% Tactel nylon, which dries 8x faster than regular cotton. That number matters because it means sweat moves away from your skin instead of pooling against it. The fabric stays light throughout the session. Friction drops because there's no wet surface generating it. If your sessions are cardio-heavy, or you're a runner training through Indian summers, the Tactel fabric is for exactly that output. Because wet fabric doesn't just feel uncomfortable. It sets up the next problem i.e. chafing.
Chafing That Ruins the Mid-Workout High
It starts as warmth. Then a mild sting. By the time you actually feel it properly, the damage is done and you're thinking about it for the rest of the session.
Chafing during a workout follows the same pattern every time: wet fabric, a raised seam, and the same stretch of skin catching that seam on repeat for your whole workout. On regular underwear, seams are stitched in a way that leaves a small raised ridge along the fabric. During a normal day, you don't feel it. During the constant friction of a leg day or a long run, you absolutely will.
XYXX Tactel Boxer Briefs are crafted with flat-lock seams. These lie completely flush against the fabric, no ridge, no raised edge, nothing catching your skin during movement. The tagless design removes the last remaining irritation point. And the double-layered at the crotch with a contoured puch adds support exactly where friction tends to be highest during high-rep sets, not just as extra fabric, but as a deliberate buffer between you and the problem. Deal with the seams and there's still one thing left sitting against your skin, doing quiet damage.
That Waistband Dig? You've Just Accepted It.
During a plank, your waistband is under tension. Standard elastic handles this by gripping harder the longer you hold the position. The result is a familiar dig into your waist mid-set. And on a bent-over row, the waistband rolls. You know the fold, that thick, doubled-over strip sitting between your shorts and your back. You've ignored it between sets and kept going.
The XYXX Tactel Underwear comes with an anti-roll, no-marks waistband. Instead of concentrating pressure at one point, it distributes it evenly across your waist. It stays flat. It doesn't dig. In a plank, you won't feel it. In a bent-over row, it doesn't shift. It just sits there comfortably around your waist, ensuring ease during your workout.
The best underwear for working out doesn't announce itself. It stays completely out of your head from the first set to the last. You finish the session thinking about the workout, not what was going on underneath your shorts. That's the XYXX Tactel range: If you're a briefs guy, Tactel Briefs give you the minimal, snug fit you already prefer, just built for performance. If you wear trunks,Tactel Trunks bring the same logic to a mid-coverage cut. And if you want maximum coverage without bulk, opt for Tactel Boxer Briefs. Shop the Tactel collection on XYXX and feel the difference from the very first rep.
FAQs
Tactel Trunks vs regular underwear for gym workouts: what actually changes?
Regular underwear fails at the gym in three specific ways: it rides up because the fabric can't stretch in four directions, it stays wet because cotton holds moisture, and the seams chafe because they were never built for the continuous friction. XYXX Tactel undies fix all three in the fabric itself: 92% Tactel nylon dries 8x faster than cotton, 4-way stretch kills the ride-up, and flat-lock seams remove the irritation point entirely.
Why does gym underwear smell even right after washing?
It's a fabric problem, not a hygiene one. Cotton holds moisture deep in the fibre, and that trapped sweat becomes a breeding ground for odour-causing bacteria over repeated wash cycles. The smell bakes in over time. Tactel Underwear doesn't absorb moisture the same way, it releases it. So bacteria don't get the damp environment they need to build up, and the underwear stays fresher for longer, wash after wash.
Which underwear is best for daily gym use in India?
For daily gym use in Indian summers, XYXX Tactel Underwear is the strongest choice. The flat-lock seams prevent chafing through extended sessions, the no-marks waistband doesn't dig under tension, and the quick dry fabric handles humidity without holding moisture. All three cuts (Trunks, Briefs, Boxer Briefs) work for the gym, but the Boxer Briefs give maximum coverage for high-movement training.
What should you wear under gym shorts for a full leg day?
XYXX Tactel Trunks. Leg day puts the most demand on your underwear, deep squats, lunges, Romanian deadlifts and the 4-way stretch handles the full range of motion without riding up or pulling. The contoured pouch keeps everything in place through movements that would expose every weakness in regular underwear.
Does the no-marks waistband on XYXX Tactel undies actually stay put during heavy lifts?
Yes, and the reason is in how it's built. Standard elastic grips to stay up, which means the harder you move, the more it digs in or rolls over. The no-marks waistband in XYXX Tactel Underwear distributes pressure evenly across your waist instead of concentrating it at one point, so it doesn't fold during a bent-over row or dig during a plank hold. It dries 8x faster than regular cotton so nothing is working against your mid-lift.
