All in Motion Yoga Mats: One Name, Five Different Mats

The most useful thing to know about the All in Motion yoga mat is that there is no such thing.

All in Motion is Target’s house athletic brand, and under that one name Target sells mats in PVC, TPE, natural rubber, natural rubber with a polyurethane top, and NBR foam, in thicknesses from 3mm to 15mm. Those materials do not behave alike. Two of them are not really built for the same activity.

So a search for “all in motion yoga mat” returns a shelf, not a product, and the brand name on the label predicts almost nothing about what you will get.

What is actually on the shelf

The materials Target lists under the name, and what each one means in practice:

Listed as	Thickness	Grip when you sweat	Really for
PVC	3mm, 5mm	falls (closed-cell)	durable all-rounder, dry practice
TPE	5mm	falls (closed-cell)	light, softer, less durable
Natural rubber	5mm	material alone does not say	dry practice, probably
Rubber + polyurethane	5mm	rises (open-cell)	sweat, hot, vigorous
NBR foam	15mm	falls (closed-cell)	floor work, knees, not standing

The mat buying guide explains why that third column is the one that decides things: closed-cell surfaces shed moisture and lose grip as you sweat, open-cell surfaces take a little in and gain it.

One honest gap in that table. Natural rubber on its own does not tell you which side of the line a mat sits on. Jade’s Harmony is open-cell rubber and Manduka’s eKO is closed-cell rubber, and they behave in opposite directions. Our Jade Harmony page covers that trap. If a Target listing says only “natural rubber”, you cannot tell, and it is reasonable to assume the more common closed-cell build.

Low tack and high tack: use this

Target publishes a grip rating on the listing, as low tack grip or high tack grip, and that is genuinely more than most brands tell you.

Tack is stickiness underfoot. It is not the same question as the wet-grip one above, and both matter:

• High tack actively resists your hand or foot sliding. This is what you want in any vigorous practice, and what stops your hands creeping forward in downward dog.
• Low tack is smoother. Perfectly fine for gentle floor work, stretching and restorative practice. A nuisance in a flowing class.

Two of the printed PVC mats are listed low tack; a solid PVC one is listed high tack. If two mats look identical apart from the pattern, that line is the reason to pick one over the other.

The rubber-polyurethane one is the interesting item

Buried in the range is a natural rubber mat with a polyurethane top layer, listed high tack.

That is the same construction as the lululemon Reversible and Manduka’s GRP: an open-cell polyurethane surface bonded to a rubber base, which is the build that grips harder as you sweat. At a house-brand price, that is the most interesting thing on this shelf by a distance.

We have not handled it, so we are not going to tell you it is as good. What we can tell you is what to check, and it is the same list our lululemon page gives for any cheaper version of that construction:

• Is the top layer actually polyurethane, or a printed coating over foam?
• Is the base actually rubber? PU over foam gives you the grip without the density, and it will feel unstable.
• How well is the top layer bonded? This is where inexpensive versions fail. A thin or poorly bonded PU layer peels at the edges, and once it starts there is no repair.

If it gets all three right, it is doing the same physics as a mat costing several times more. If it gets the third wrong, you will know within a year.

The 15mm is a floor mat

Target’s 15mm option is NBR foam and Target files it as a fitness mat, which is the honest description.

At 15mm you are standing on three times a normal yoga mat. It is genuinely excellent under knees, hips and elbows, and it makes single-leg balances harder in a way that has nothing to do with your balance improving. Our page on the Retrospec Solana covers this trade in detail, because that mat is the same material at a similar thickness and the same misunderstanding follows it around.

Buy it for the floor. Do not buy it as your only mat.

Which one to buy

• First mat, general practice, want it to last. The 5mm PVC, high tack.
• You sweat, or you practise hot. The rubber-polyurethane one, with the three checks above.
• You want light and cheap and you know it is a starter. The 5mm TPE.
• Your knees are the problem. The 15mm, as a floor mat alongside something thinner.
• You want a thinner mat for travel. The 3mm PVC, understanding you will feel the floor.

What a house-brand mat is, and is not

Worth saying plainly, because people are oddly apologetic about buying one.

It is a completely reasonable first mat. A beginner does not need a premium mat, and the money is better spent on classes than on equipment you are not sure you will keep using. Nothing about starting on a Target mat holds your practice back.

What it will not do is match a premium mat on lifespan, and it will not behave in a heated room unless you deliberately chose the polyurethane version. Both of those are honest trade-offs rather than defects.

The upgrade moment, when it comes, is usually one of two things: you started sweating and the mat stopped gripping, or the surface wore through where your hands land. The buying guide covers what to move to.

How to tell which one you already own

A lot of people arrive here having bought one and not knowing what it is, which is the direct consequence of everything above. The mat itself does not usually say, and the Target order history often just says “yoga mat”.

You can work it out by hand in about a minute, using the same test our care guide opens with.

Drip a few drops of water on the surface and wait ten seconds.

• It beads and sits there. Closed-cell. That is PVC, TPE or NBR foam, and it means grip drops as you sweat.
• It darkens the spot and sinks in. Open-cell. That is the polyurethane-topped one, and it means grip rises as you sweat.

Then weigh it and look at a cut edge.

• PVC. Plastic-smooth, springy, light, with a uniform foam edge.
• TPE. Feels like foam rather than plastic, very light, often two-tone.
• Natural rubber. Distinctly heavy, a faint rubbery smell, and a slight drag on the surface.
• Rubber with a polyurethane top. A smooth top layer over a darker base, and slightly tacky when damp.
• NBR foam. Thick, squishy, and very light for its bulk.

Knowing which you have changes two things immediately: whether you should be taking it to a heated class, and which cleaners will destroy it.

Caring for it, once you know which one you have

The routine that is safe on every material here: a cloth wrung out in plain water after each practice, a trace of mild dish soap for a deeper clean, then a plain-water pass to lift the soap off, and dry it flat before rolling.

Past that it splits by material, and the mat-care guide has the full table:

• PVC is the most forgiving here, and tolerates heavily diluted vinegar.
• TPE wants gentler pressure and no hot water, and a washing machine will deform it permanently.
• Natural rubber and polyurethane tolerate no vinegar, no alcohol and no essential oils, and take much longer to dry.
• NBR foam takes water in at the cut edges. Never soak it.

If you do not know which you bought, treat it as the most fragile option. Damp cloth, plain water, dry flat. That is safe on all of them.

What we can tell you, and what we cannot

We have not practised on these mats. Nobody here owns one, and we are not going to write a hands-on verdict we have not earned. Several sites test mats properly, and if you want a tested ranking they are the better source.

The materials, thicknesses and grip ratings above come from Target’s own product listings. What we have added is what those specifications mean once you are on the mat, which is a property of the materials rather than of the brand.

The one thing we would say without hesitation: find the material on the listing before you buy. On this shelf that single line tells you more than every review of the brand put together, because the reviews are all describing different mats.

Once you have one, the studio directory lists LA studios by neighbourhood and style.