The long version of your mat costs about ten dollars more and nobody mentions it

The default yoga mat runs 68 to 71 inches. If you are taller than roughly 5'10", parts of you leave the mat in half the poses you practise, and the usual response is to shuffle forward, which quietly wrecks your alignment for years.

Several makers sell longer versions of the exact same mat — 79 or 80 inches — and they are rarely displayed as a separate product. They sit in a size dropdown on the same listing, which means they almost never appear in reviews, comparison articles or search results.

Who offers one

Of the mats in our catalogue, 6 come in a version at least 79 inches long, including several of the most-compared models. Our ranking for taller practitioners is built on the longest size a model offers rather than its standard one, precisely because that is the size the question is about.

What it costs

Usually ten to twenty dollars over the standard length, occasionally nothing at all when a retailer prices sizes flat. Against a mat you will keep for years, that is the cheapest upgrade in yoga equipment, and it fixes a problem most people blame on their practice.

How to tell whether you need one

Lie down on your current mat with your head at the top edge. If your heels are on the floor, the mat is short for you, and every pose that runs the length of the body is being adjusted around that. The other test is downward dog: if your hands are on the mat and your feet are not, you have been compensating for a while.

The catch

Longer mats are heavier by a pound or so, and they do not fit standard mat bags. If you carry your mat daily, weigh that. If your mat lives in one room, there is no downside worth the sentence.