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If meal prep is a pain, these supportive tools can help your aching back, legs, and feet. Floor Mat Anti Fatigue
No matter how much you love to cook, standing at the countertop, stove, and sink for hours can cause major soreness and pain. But there's an often-overlooked tool to keep aches at bay: the anti-fatigue mat. This essential tool can be as fundamental to your kitchen setup as your sink, cabinets, and range hood. The best anti-fatigue mats make meal prep less of a pain.
We laid out more than a dozen anti-fatigue mats in our test kitchen to put them to the test, and then we spent six more months using the top winners in our daily cooking routines to ensure they continued to work well in the long term. Read on for the best anti-fatigue mats to add comfort, support, and perhaps a pop of color to your kitchen floor.
This durable, easy-to-clean mat is available in a variety of sizes and colors to suit any kitchen space.
The high-density foam may take some time to loosen up and feel optimally comfortable.
A combination of comfort and customizability make this anti-fatigue mat our top choice. Even after six months of daily use in our test kitchen, it still looked and felt brand new. There's high-density supportive foam inside the mat, with an outer layer of textured rubber for grip between feet and mat, and mat and floor. The material is made to clean off with a rinse in the sink, and neither the flour nor the molasses stuck in our tests.
At first, we noticed that our heels sank into this mat a bit more than the front of the foot, which helped maintain good posture but felt a little strange. After a few hours of use, however, the foam was more evenly supportive — and it stayed that way over our entire long-term test, developing no indentations, impressions, or stains.
We tested the 32-by-20-inch Gorilla Grip, which is a good choice if you'll be working mostly in a stationary spot. But the same design is also available in seven sizes to fit any kitchen layout, ranging from studio-apartment-sized 17-by-24 inches to a runner-sized 70-by-24 inches for a long galley kitchen. There are more than a dozen colors and patterns available, so you can coordinate your mat with your favorite cookware set. This mat's price for its size is right around average for our tests, but keep in mind that not every colorway costs the same amount.
Dimensions: 32 x 20 x 0.75 inches | Weight: 2.85 pounds | Materials: Rubber, foam
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
This mats is easy to clean, provides a decent amount of cushion, and has anti-slip texture on top and bottom.
It's not as thick and cushiony as others, and has just one size option.
It might be one of the thinnest we tested, but the dense material of this no-frills mat provided nice support for our feet and legs. You don't get the bouncy feeling of more expensive models, but the Amazon Basics kept fatigue at bay nearly as well as those did. This mat is a single piece of foam, with a "woven" texture on the top that prevents slipping (and feels nice on bare feet), and a different non-skid pattern on the bottom to hold it in place against the floor. Cleanup was as easy as a wipe or a rinse, and we had no problems with staining or damage over six months of long-term testing.
Our main issue here is the lack of options. The Amazon Basics mat only comes in one size, with just brown and black hues. But if 36 by 20 inches works for your space and you're fine with a basic color, this mat will work.
Dimensions: 36 x 20 x 0.6 inches | Weight: 3.3 pounds | Material: Foam
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
This thick mat feels cushy and firm, and commercial-grade foam ensures durability.
It's quite expensive, and it was tough to remove sticky spills.
GelPro's NewLife mat feels more luxurious than its competitors — and it has a price to match. It feels like standing on a cloud thanks to a unique material that's soft like memory foam but doesn't compress. (The brand is called GelPro, but this particular model doesn't have any gel material in it.) Our feet didn't even leave impressions when we stepped off! This is a commercial-grade mat designed for chefs, cashiers, and anybody else who stands all day long, and it'll hold up to almost any home situation.
The NewLife's only stumble in testing came with cleaning: A molasses spill wouldn't just rinse off and needed some intense scrubbing to remove fully. If you find yourself with hip and knee pain standing on a bare floor, this could be just the thing to get you back to managing a stove full of bubbling pots. The mat comes in four colors and five sizes, ranging in cost from expensive to very, very expensive.
Dimensions: 32 x 20 x 0.75 inches | Weight: 4.5 pounds | Material: Foam
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
This bouncy mat is perfect for someone who wants thicker padding under their feet.
The surface texture makes it somewhat harder to clean than other mats.
This mat from Featol is one of the cushiest we tested. It's nearly an inch thick and made from a core of springy memory foam surrounded by soft polyurethane fabric. Its gently beveled edges help keep you from tripping over the tall mat and keep it in place on the floor. It held up easily over six months of long-term testing, thanks to the leather-ish texture of the outer layer that resists tears, cracks, and punctures.
Unfortunately, that texture can also hold onto sticky or floury spills. The rough fabric won't wipe clean in a single swipe of a sponge; you're going to have to do some scrubbing. The Featol mat is available in several colors and four sizes, all of them pretty reasonably priced.
Dimensions: 32 x 20 x 0.9 inches | Weight: 5.14 pounds | Materials: Polyurethane, memory foam
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
This durable mat offers firm support that holds up over time, and it comes in lots of colors and patterns.
There's hardly any give at all, which not everybody will love.
Comfortable but not squishy, this Kangaroo mat stood out as one of the firmest we tested. It'll make you feel supported from heel to toe with nice even weight distribution, though not everybody will love how hard it feels — especially someone who often cooks barefoot. But if a stiffer mat is your preference, this one is easy on the hips and knees, and it'll keep its firmness. Even after six months of use, it didn't become any more "broken in."
We also love all the color choices, with a total of 14 different options. If you want a marble-patterned kitchen mat, this is your chance. The main downside we found is the mat's textured diamond pattern, which can hold onto food bits and need extra wiping or cleaning with a vacuum cleaner.
Dimensions: 32 x 20 x 0.75 inches | Weight: 2.82 pounds | Materials: Rubber, foam
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
In our tests, the Gorilla Grip Anti-Fatigue Cushioned Comfort Mat stood out for being comfortable to stand on for hours. It's easy to clean and stain- and odor-resistant. We also recommend it for the number of color and size options available — this mat can make a seamless addition to any kitchen.
We tested 16 anti-fatigue mats and compared them side-by-side in our test kitchen, analyzing each one on durability and design characteristics and putting them through a series of specific tests. Most of the mats we tested are available in multiple sizes, but we used the most common 32-by-20-inch size (or as close to it as possible) to make a fair comparison in testing.
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
After completing all of our other tests, we revealed the retail prices of each mat to consider value for money. At the time of testing, the 16 mats ranged in price from $11 to $115, with an average of $47. Though we only tested one of each mat, our rankings also take into account the total range of sizes and colors available — more choices are a good thing.
Food & Wine / Fred Hardy
If you only need an anti-fatigue mat for standing in one place in front of the stove or kitchen sink, something around 32 by 20 inches is a good size. We chose that for our tests since most brands have it or something close. But mats come in lots of sizes and shapes, and your particular needs and kitchen layout might call for something different. For a narrow galley kitchen, a long runner-style mat could cover the entire area at once. In a larger space, you might want multiple small mats in front of the stove, sink, and prep area rather than one enormous one.
And of course, size affects price: The bigger the mat, the more it will cost. Before you buy a mat, it's a good idea to break out a tape measure to be sure the size is exactly what you're expecting.
The anti-fatigue mats we tested range from less than half and inch to more than an inch tall. The padding needs some amount of thickness to actually absorb weight and take pressure off your muscles, but a tall mat can be a safety hazard. More cushiony mats tend to be thicker, so if you prefer that style, look for a sloped edge around the outside. This makes it less likely that you'll trip over it or stub your toe against it.
Foam, plastic, and rubber are all common materials for anti-fatigue mats as they don't absorb liquid and are easy to clean. High-density foam is generally firmer than memory foam, which is soft and squishy but "remembers" its original shape after you step off the mat. There are many different types of each material at different levels of softness or firmness, so every brand is slightly different.
The texture of the outer material is also important. Many mats have some kind of anti-skid backing to keep themselves from sliding around on the floor, as well as a pattern on top that keeps your feet from slipping. This is helpful for stability, but textured features often require more wiping and scubbing to clean than completely smooth mats.
Surprisingly enough, an anti-fatigue mat works by keeping you from standing completely still. The soft surface tricks your body into making constant small movements with your feet and legs to maintain stability. That improves blood flow, reduces soreness, and prevents "locking" of joints. Research also suggests that using anti-fatigue mats decreases lower back pain compared to standing on a bare floor.
As a rule, you should always reference the manufacturer's instructions to get specific details on how to clean any kitchen item. But most anti-fatigue mats can be wiped down with a wet sponge or dish towel, and often rinsed in the sink. For heavy-duty cleanup, you can even take your mat outside to spray down with a garden hose.
Anti-fatigue mats are not designed to be used forever; they will eventually wear out and need to be replaced. It depends how how heavily they're used, but most home mats should last between 1 and 3 years. If you notice your mat feeling flat or uneven, it might be time for a new one.
Nama Standing Mat (House of Noa)
While this mat is very stylish and comfortable, it slid around a bit on the floor. Also, all the available pattern options are light-colored, which shows dirt and spills easily, and requires frequent cleaning during our tests. On top of that, it's fairly expensive.
ComfiLife Anti-Fatigue Floor Mat (Amazon)
This thick, firm, comfortable mat was pretty comparable to the Kangaroo one above in terms of performance and range of color options. However, it's slightly more expensive and doesn't have quite as many design choices.
The Vari provides a nice amount of support, and its ridged surface provides a great grip for your feet. But it's expensive, it slid around on the floor in testing, and the texture makes it difficult to clean. It would likely fare better in an office than in a kitchen.
Hello Doormat We didn't exclude any mats based purely on price; the main problem we encountered was a lack of support. A few of the mats "bottomed out" and compressed so much that we could feel the floor beneath, while others were so firm that they didn't provide any relief from the problems caused by standing on a bare floor in the first place.