Did you know that, while the average person can walk about 10,000 steps every day, construction workers and laborers may walk more than 30,000 steps?

All that moving around means job shirts can come untucked really easily, several times during the day. This is why many professionals, including police officers, security personnel, laborers, and even sports officials wear military shirt stays—elastic straps that keep one’s shirt from becoming untucked.

Most military shirt stays are 2 piece Y type shirt stays. They work by grasping the bottom of your shirt and the tops of your socks with metal clasps. These clasps are then connected by elastic straps that run down your pant-legs. The straps separate to form a “Y” shape to connect to your shirt.

Besides keeping your shirt tucked in, military shirt stays hit two birds with one stone by also keep your socks pulled up. They are adjustable for any height.

One problem wearers of shirt stays can encounter is that, quite simply, they can come off. To solve this problem, some manufacturers of shirt stays produce stays that have belts which go around your waist, inside your pants. These belts are sometimes made of rubber, and they work using friction to keep your shirt from sliding up.

Another style of shirt stays made to combat the problem involves a rubber belt with molded hooks on it that grip the material of both the shirt and pants, to keep the shirt tails tucked in.

Another style of shirt stays, also known as garter suspenders or garter straps, wrap around the upper legs and connect to the shirt from there.

Yet another type of shirt stay, an alternative to Y type stays, is the straight shirt stay. It’s usually the cheapest kind of shirt stay available. Instead of straps that separate into a “Y” shape at the top, straight shirt stays are just that—straight. They are comprised of individual straps that connect straight from the shirt tails to the socks.

One problem with straight shirt stays as that their buckles have a tendency to break, or to come off in the middle of wearing them. However, if you’re on a budget and only need shirt stays for a single event, straight shirt stays can be the way to go.

A fourth variety of shirt stay is the stirrup shirt stay. Instead of connecting to the socks using fickle clips (which can possibly come undone and shoot up painfully against the groin), stirrup shirt stays have loops that wrap all the way around the feet. Hence the name, as the loop wrapping around the foot can resemble the stirrup of a saddle.

There can be a mild amount of unpleasantness involved in wearing a stirrup stay, however, as the loop inside your shoe can feel awkward and cause you to walk in a slightly odd or unnatural manner.

It’s really rather remarkable just how many varieties and amalgamations of shirt stays there are. Hopefully, this article has given you an idea of what to look for and expect in shirt stays for military, police, laborers, and professionals.