Nordic Lifting Shoes/Sleeves

[bLinkMoore]

Not sure how often this part of the forum is used for equipment REVIEWS, but here's one.

I've been on the fence about buying knee sleeves and squat shoes for a long time. Honestly, it was mostly ego. My squat isn't particularly good (~315 @ 170BW) so I didn't want to look all goofy, showing up in my powerlifter gear and busting out some 250lb squats.
Then I heard about the Smolov program, and I know I'm probably going to get some criticism for trying out such an intense peaking program for little reason other than to push myself and see how high I can push it, but that's not the point of this thread haha.
So anyways, I was reading up on this program to see if I really wanted to do it, and one of the most common things I heard people saying was "yeah, it bumped my squat up 100 pounds, but I have arthritis in my knees now". That wasn't particularly appealing, at 18 years old.
So I started REALLY looking at squat shoes and sleeves. Basically said, "**** it, I'm already doing this program that I realistically shouldn't be doing, I'm at least going to be safe about it. Hell with ego".
BEST DECISION

I settled on the Nordic Lifting 7mm Neoprene Knee Sleeves and the Nordic Lifting Men's Squat Shoe, for a combination of reasons; chiefly the fact that I got shoes and sleeves for <$120, compared to $200+ for some of the nice Adidas shoes.

Honestly, best $120 I ever spent. They're so much nicer than I could have hoped for, and the difference is incredible. It felt a bit weird to squat with a significantly elevated heel, after 4+ months of doing all my lifts in socks, but after a couple sets I started noticing how much smoother everything felt. Yesterday, I hit a 10x3 @275lbs--last time I squatted 275lbs was a few weeks ago, and it was for a 3x5 that almost killed me. I know that the biggest factor in being able to hit weights like that is just that I'm getting stronger, but I fully attribute the fact that my knees didn't hate me afterwards to this new gear. Even the slow, grinding reps have been smoother than they used to--something about that slightly compression on the knees and little bit of lift in the heel with the hard sole, makes a world of difference.

Never in my life have I been so excited at the fact that I *get to* squat heavy 4x per week. I'm so excited to see what my max is at the end of the first four weeks of the program--maybe I'll post a video.

Until then, I hope that someone who's been thinking about taking the leap and buying shoes and/or sleeves sees this and it helps convince you to make the purchase--you'll be so happy if you do.