Engage Fundamentals Long Sleeve Rash Guard Review

Engage Ind Fundamentals Long Sleeve Rash Guard Review

Brand

Engage is an Australian Fight Wear, Fight Gear, Activewear and Apparel brand. Engage has a high focus on visuals, with their equipment often featuring bold colours, designs and styles not frequently seen in the fight gear industry.

About the rash guard

The fundamentals rash guard is part of the engage fundamentals range, designed to be fundamental products that martial artists can use whatever discipline they’re training. You can get it in any colour you like as long as it’s black and it comes in sizes S to 3XL, so you’ll definitely find one that fits. There is also a short sleeved version available.

Engage sent us across one of these rash guards to test out and give our opinions on.

Visuals

Engage Ind have gone for a really simple, spartan design with the fundamentals range -they describe it themselves as being minimalistic. The whole rash guard is black, with the only detailing coming from a range of decals, the kind of thing you’d expect to find on a label, arrayed down the front giving details of the core tech material, background on the product and a pretty cool decal of someone getting choked. And that’s it. Like we said, simplistic and spartan, but in a world of over the top and very vibrant rash guards Engage’s Fundamental range manages to stand out by not standing out.

Materials/Craftsmanship

Engage have packed their range with various tech to make sure they perform as well as possible. On their rash guard these ‘core tech’ features start with E-Tech 4-way fabric (a 100% polyester fabric) that optimises your body temperature and provides UV protection, high stretch vented panels to keep you cool and dry, silicone edges to the waistband preventing it from sliding up, flatlock reinforced seams to reduce friction, and moisture wicking to remove sweat. Basically, Engage has carefully selected the material they’ve used and carefully designed their product to maximise functionality during any sort of training – exactly what you want from a range that is made to be a fundamental piece of kit for anyone training martial arts. The craftsmanship is what we’ve come to expect from testing Engage products – there’s no signs of wear and tear on the rash guard, all the stitching is neat and even and despite the friction of training all the decals are good as new (we have to admit, we’re slightly surprised none of them have peeled off!).

Comfort/use

We’ve found training in the Engage long sleeve rash guard to be great. The majority of our testing was during striking training, but we’ve had the chance to roll and do some BJJ drills wearing the rash guard as well and found it well suited to both types of training. The material is a great blend of tight but elasticated, allowing for full range of movement without compromising on the compression properties of the product. Our favourite feature has to be the silicone grip on the hem, the worst feeling in training is a rash guard sliding up and it’s really annoying having to constantly adjust and pull it back down. Engage’s rash guard solves this by gripping on and stays in position really well.

Cost

The retail on the Engage long sleeve rash guard is £48, though at the time of writing there’s a sale on meaning you can pick a pair up for £43. While this is middle of the road in terms of cost we think overall the quality of the product and the high quality materials makes this good value for money. It’s a well made, durable rash guard that will serve you well in either striking or grappling and will last long enough to get your money’s worth from it.