Do Under Armour Shorts Run Small? Two Pairs Measured at 6’8″

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No. The waist runs true, and on one pair it runs a little large. What is short is the leg, and that is a different problem with a different answer.

I own two pairs of Under Armour shorts and I wear both of them constantly. I put a tape on each one. Here is what the numbers say, including the measurement almost nobody publishes for shorts.

What I measured

Both measured flat by hand at 6 foot 8, 285 lb. Flat measurements are half the garment — double them for the figure around your body.

Measurement	Exercise short	Golf short
Label size	2XL	40
Waistband, flat	19 in (38 around)	20.5 in (41 around)
Inseam	8.25 in	8 in
Front rise	12 in	12.5 in
Back rise	15.5 in	17 in
Thigh, flat	12.75 in	13 in
Leg opening, flat	11 in	11 in
Fabric	85 poly / 15 elastane	90 poly / 10 elastane

The waist is not the problem

The golf short is labelled 40. It measures 20.5 inches flat, which is 41 inches around. That is a size label running large by an inch, not small.

The exercise short is labelled 2XL and measures 19 inches flat, 38 around. Alpha sizing and waist sizing on the same body, from the same brand, three inches apart — which is its own small lesson about reading labels.

So if you arrived here because a pair arrived and felt tight, it is worth checking what you actually ordered before blaming the brand. Under Armour’s reputation for running narrow is real, but it is a top-half problem, and mostly a polo problem. It did not show up in either of these.

The leg is short, and no size fixes it

Eight inches of inseam. Eight and a quarter on the other.

On an average frame an 8 inch inseam lands just above the knee. On mine it lands well above it. That is not the size running small — it is the pattern. Both of these are labelled with a regular size, not a tall one, and a regular pattern puts the hem where a regular leg expects it.

Going up a size will not buy you length here. It buys waist and thigh, which is the same trap I measured on the tops — a bigger size is a wider garment, not a longer one. If the hem sits too high for you on an 8 inch inseam, a 3XL will sit in almost exactly the same place with more room around it.

The number nobody publishes for shorts

Here is the part that actually decides whether shorts work on a long body, and it is not the inseam.

Front rise: 12 inches and 12.5 inches. Rise is the distance from the top of the waistband straight down to the crotch seam — the measurement that decides where a garment sits on you rather than where it ends.

To put those two figures in context: across five pairs of jeans I measured, the two I kept sat between 11.25 and 12.25 inches of front rise normalised to a 36 inch inseam. Both of these shorts sit at the top of that window or just above it.

That is why they work. They reach my natural waist and stay there. A short with a 10 inch rise would sit on my hips, drag the crotch seam down with it, and turn an 8 inch inseam into something closer to a 6 — which is the actual mechanism behind shorts that look wrong on tall men and get blamed on length.

Almost no listing publishes a rise figure for shorts. Both of these are in the database, with every other number alongside.

These are two different purchases

It would be tidy to call one of these the winner. They are not competing. I bought them for different reasons and I reach for them on different days.

The exercise short is a training short

You buy this one to sweat in it. It is the higher-stretch of the two — 15 percent elastane against 10 — and it moves and wicks the way a training short is supposed to. The 3.5 inch drop from front rise to back is a running and lifting cut, not a sitting-down cut.

It is also the pair I wear over compression tights when it turns cold, and the two garments happen to measure well together. The short’s front rise is 12 inches; the tights measure 8.5 at the front relaxed and 9.75 stretched. The short’s waistband sits three inches higher and covers the tights’ completely, so there is no doubled band digging in at the middle. The short’s thigh is 12.75 inches flat against 12 for the tights under stretch — three quarters of an inch of clearance, which is snug and correct rather than tight. And the leg opening is the part that makes it actually work: 11 inches flat on both pairs, 22 around, which is plenty of room to pass over a compression leg. It does not grab, it does not ride, and it does not bunch at the hem the way a narrower short would.

Be clear about what that looks like, though. Those tights stop at mid-calf on me, and an 8.25 inch short finishes above the knee, so there is a long run of visible tight in between ending four inches short of the ankle. Under trousers nobody sees it. Under shorts, everybody does. For training outside in the cold I do not care, and that is the whole argument for the combination — it is warmth, not a look.

The golf short looks great on the course, or at a fancy picnic

It looks right on a course and it looks right at a picnic, which is a narrow and useful thing for a pair of shorts to manage. Ten percent elastane instead of fifteen gives it more structure, so it holds its shape rather than draping like gym kit, and it reads as a real pair of shorts rather than athletic wear. It carries the Under Armour name, which for a lot of people is the reason it gets picked over a generic pair at the same money.

And it has the measurement to back the job up. 17 inches of back rise against 15.5 — a 4.5 inch drop from front to back, against 3.5 on the exercise short. That extra inch is what keeps a waistband where you put it when you bend at the hip or sit down, which is exactly the situation a golf short spends its life in. It costs an inch and a half of extra waistband to get.

If you want one pair that does both, it is this one. If you are training in them, it is not.

The two I own

Both stayed, and both get worn. Neither is long, and I have stopped expecting a short to be.

If what you want is neither — something to lounge in rather than train or be seen in — the cheap sweat shorts I reviewed separately do that job and do not pretend otherwise.

The short version

• Do Under Armour shorts run small? No. A labelled 40 measured 41 inches around. A 2XL measured 38.
• The inseam is short — 8 and 8.25 inches — and sizing up will not change it. A bigger size is wider, not longer.
• Rise is what makes shorts work on a long body. Both of these run 12 to 12.5 inches at the front, which is high, and that is why they sit where they should.
• Buy the exercise short to train in — more stretch, better wicking, and a leg opening wide enough to go over compression tights without bunching.
• Buy the golf short for the course, or anywhere you want to look put together — more structure, and an inch more back rise for sitting and bending.
• Under Armour’s narrow reputation is a top-half problem. It did not show up in either pair.