March 8, 2017
When I went to the PA Horse World Expo last weekend my friend Chrissy and I found a bra vendor. I assumed these bras were some new, up and coming, high impact bras. I was half correct, they are high impact, but they are not a new brand. The bra is Enell brand and is readily available.
But just because it is not a new design doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth checking out. So I had the sales rep, Meghan fit me and strapped one over my t-shirt. I did a horseless sitting trot, some flag reaches, dunks, and some leans, and felt pretty comfortable.
Chrissy and I laughed. I bought one.
The next day I strapped in (this time under my shirt) and headed for practice to give the bra a test.
Now before I go into full out review, let me give you some overly personal stats and background; I am a well endowed lady. I hang around the 40dd range, a 3 in the Enell, and have experience in high impact bras. My current top high impact serious bras are from Moving Comfort, and I also have an original and a Gen2 Shefit (“as seen on Sharktank”). I consider these bras the only real high impact bras I have tried that are worth a damn.
I have surpisingly high standards for high impact bras. My ladies need to be held in place and not move around. Easy. Or not. I am always taken back by how many other women with large ladies resort to wearing multiple layers of crap Champion brand spandex “sports bras”. Note the quotation marks around sports bras. If you have to wear three of them at the same time and your boobs still nearly knock you out if you move too fast, the whole high impact thing becomes an alternative fact.
Ok so now what did I think of the Enell sports bra? I love it. Unlike a lot of other bras, that are basically triangles with straps attached, the Enell is more of a vest. The back is solid, with supportive criss crossy seams to help distribute the tension, no back boob, no side boob, no underarm boob, none of the boobs squishing out another end. Ugly but efficient and it works.
Another massive bonus to this vest design, is the straps over the shoulder are super wide. And the pressure is divided out all over the back. Often a bra will give me shoulder aches, neck aches, back aches and even head aches from the strain of the shoulder straps. Even really wide straps like many Moving Comfort and the Shefit brands have. I did not have any strain or ache when wearing the Enell.
The bra fastens up the front with hook and loop fixtures, and completely covers the ladies, no cleavage. Remember I said, no top boob. Although it’s easy to have a loop unhook as you do up the next and it takes like 5 seconds to fasten it up. It is in the front, so you can at least see what you’re doing. I do like a zipper and I think it would work with this design. Although, I have had issues with bras unzipping mid ride (hello Shefit original) – boom, boobs everywhere.
This design means the fit is a lot less forgiving. Which is also a common error by bra shoppers. For high impact you need to make sure the under-boob-band fits snugly. If it’s too loose it doesn’t mater how awesome the rest of it is, if it doesn’t fit properly, it won’t be able to do it’s job.
One of the biggest bonuses to this bra, no under boob rubs. Yeah. Even a decent bra seems to leave me with underboob rubs after a long sweaty ride. Now it is March, and I was not working up a summer time style sweat, but I do normally get some minor redness after these practice sessions. In the Enell I did not. Complete score.
I did the sitting trot test, you know, doing a sitting trot and seeing how much the girls bounce, and I ride a choppy pony! There was some bounce but it was minimum. although the Moving Comfort and Shefit score better on this test, not having the neck, back, should strain, head aches and underboob rubs was worth the small bounce. I feel like maybe the shoulder could be a tiny bit shorter and it would help with the bounce. I may try shortening them just a tad.
End of ride – 4 1/2 stars = happy rider.
I rode in it again on Tuesday, a lighter impact ride at home doing some flat work, no strain, no red, happy rider.
And I am about to head out for a conditioning trail ride with it on.
As of this moment I am sold on this bra 100% and will be buying another. The $60-70 price point is affordable, especially for high impact, large chest bras. Not exactly sexy, but boobs knocking you out sucks too.
I will save your vision and my modesty and not include any self portraits in this post. So here is a stock photo!

Like this:
Like Loading...