Consider the phone in your pocket. On a run, it becomes a tiny pendulum. During a squat, a waistband can announce itself at precisely the wrong moment. Workout clothes have a curious job: they must survive considerable activity while attracting almost no attention. Ten Thousand, the New York men’s training brand, has made a business out of that contradiction. Its proposition is that the garment should accommodate the session, rather than oblige the athlete to keep negotiating with it.
- Customers helped test early prototypes, with fit, pockets and liners on the agenda.
- Shorts anchor a wider range built for lifting, running and outdoor training.
- Online sales now sit alongside retailers and partnerships with training communities.
01 The customer gets a prototype
By February 2016, co-founders Keith Nowak and Eugenio Labadie were trying something unusually specific. Through a program called Labs, Ten Thousand offered a limited run of an Endurance Short prototype at a reduced price. Buyers could help refine it. The questions concerned fit, pocket placement and liner construction: details a person can judge while wearing something, rather than admire on a mood board.
The founders disliked the churn of seasonal merchandise. A customer might find a useful fit, then discover that the next collection had changed it. Their early assortment contained just three products. That narrowness gave them fewer things to revise and more reason to revise each one. A complaint could become an instruction.
“We are building that core lineup of products, and making them better over time.”
Keith Nowak, 2016
There is a useful distinction here between asking whether someone likes a brand and asking whether a pocket belongs somewhere else. One yields approval; the other can yield a pattern change. Ten Thousand’s early experiment made the second conversation possible.
Ask about the thing that moved, pinched or bounced.
02 A wardrobe with job descriptions
Nowak had a background in professional soccer, endurance sport and investing. In a 2017 interview, he described wanting clothes for men whose exercise no longer belonged to a single sport. That helps explain the company’s position in the market. Its imagined customer might lift on Monday, run on Wednesday and do a conditioning circuit on Saturday. A narrow sporting identity would be a poor fit for that week.
The range separates those demands. Interval is the general training short, with four-way stretch, ventilation and secure storage. Session emphasizes lightness for running and conditioning. Tactical uses abrasion-resistant ripstop for rougher outdoor work. Output is aimed at strength training. Shirts, pants, compression baselayers, hoodies and accessories complete the wardrobe. The expertise the brand sells is the handling of mundane frictions: movement, moisture, abrasion and carrying your belongings.
These distinctions offer a sensible way to shop. Start with the workout, then choose the inseam and whether you want a liner. The competitor list includes Lululemon, Rhone, Vuori and Nike. None loses merely because Ten Thousand has a persuasive story. Fit remains stubbornly personal, and a familiar pair that works has already passed a meaningful test.
03 The difficult business of having stock
For an apparel company, a promising design is only part of the assignment. It has to arrive in the right size when somebody wants to buy it. In 2023, Nowak told Retail Dive that rapid growth and supply-chain problems had made maintaining sufficient inventory difficult. This is the documented pressure point: demand can outrun the machinery intended to satisfy it.
Ten Thousand announced a $21.5 million Series A in June 2023, led by Provenance with Fernbrook and Alfa participating. Inventory, production, hiring and marketing were among the stated uses. Forza announced further backing in an August 2025 Series B. The progression shows what a physical-product business must finance. Feedback can refine a design; it cannot stock a warehouse.
Capital for the business behind the garment.
Its commercial model has also widened. The brand sells through its own website, while Marathon Sports carries its apparel in stores and online. A three-year Life Time partnership announced in 2023 put the company into specified training teams, classes and events. My reading: a trainer wearing the product makes the gym itself a place of discovery. The online storefront remains useful, but the customer does not live inside it.
04 What the shorts actually cost
At the October 2026 site check, black seven-inch Interval Shorts were listed at $88 unlined and $98 lined. The current continental-US shipping policy adds $10 to orders below $150. Those numbers make this a considered purchase. Frequent use may justify the expense; occasional exercise may provide fewer chances to notice what the extra money bought.
Read the current guarantee, too. It provides replacement consideration within one year for qualifying purchases from Ten Thousand’s website, with proof of purchase and case-by-case review. Older lifetime language should not guide a new order. Independent reviewer Jake Boly praised the Interval’s versatility while identifying drawstring movement during washing and inconsistent customer service as drawbacks. Athlete testing does not abolish ordinary ownership problems.
05 The part worth borrowing
The copyable habit is modest: let people use a working product, then ask what interrupted them. Ask where it pinched, what slipped and which feature went unused. An athlete’s endorsement can attract attention; an athlete’s detailed complaint can improve construction. The early Labs approach put those two kinds of value within the same relationship.
That method depends on customers having a repeatable job for the product. It is less useful when the buyer’s main pleasure is novelty, or when the cheapest acceptable option already solves the problem. Even within training, a runner seeking minimal weight and a lifter seeking abrasion resistance may disagree. Feedback still requires someone to choose which user and which task deserve priority.
Ten Thousand’s later partnerships bring that choice into view. Life Time named it presenting sponsor of the April 2026 Minneapolis LT Games, a competition combining strength and endurance. A 2025 Birdwell collaboration explored the overlap between surfing and training. The range has grown beyond those original three products. Its most interesting promise remains wonderfully demanding: make clothes people can stop thinking about once the work begins.