Supplying yourself with the right training equipment for your Mixed Martial Arts journey is critical to your overall growth as a martial artist. Training on the heavy bag without proper protection, or even practicing leg kicks without the right gear can not only lead to injury, but it can also affect your overall performance and comprehension of techniques since you’ll be hesitant to throw certain strikes at your lowest optimal rate. Whether you’re a Boxer, Kickboxer, or all-around Mixed Martial Arts practitioner, we’ve compiled our list of the top six MMA training accessories to add to your arsenal.
Like Boxing gloves, hand wraps are considered a “bare minimum” item to have in your gym bad when you train in any striking martial art. You’ll want to be sure to equip yourself with a solid set of hand wraps to protect your hands and wrists during intense training. Failure to do so can lead to sprained wrists, and hitting the bag with a sprained wrist absolutely sucks.
Check out below our recommendations for top quality hand wraps:
The Everlast 1910 Hand Wraps offer a soft cotton wrapping experience and offer a little more than the 180 inches that’s advertised on their packaging. A common issue when wrapping your hands is sometimes you’ll want some extra padding on the knuckles, only to fall short when you’re finishing wrapping your hands. With the extra length provided, you’ll always have ample protection to your knuckles and wrists with a classic look.
The Everlast Flexcool Hand Wraps offer an elastic wrapping experience that’s perfect for striking martial arts practitioners who want to keep their hands cool during training. While the only downside of the gloves are that you are susceptible of wrapping your hands too tight (causing a bit of discomfort), as long as your not wrapping too tight, these hand wraps are super comfortable from the start to the end of your training.
Just like the Everlast Elastic Hand Wraps, the Fairtex Elastic hand wraps also offer an elastic wrapping experience. If you prefer to wear Muay Thai specific gear, these hand wraps are for you.
For anyone who’s involved in either Muay Thai or Kickboxing, shin guards, or shin pads, are an essential piece of gear to add to your gym bag. Their sole purpose is to protect your shins during technical sparring and regular sparring. Imagine learning a technique, such as a roundhouse kick to the body, and your team mate lowers his elbow just slightly. Although you may not be throwing with any significant amount of force, your shins will definitely feel the pain of contact.
Check out below our recommendations for top quality shin guards:
The Fairtex SP3 Muay Thai shin guards are perfect for both training and sparring. They offer solid padding to the shins and feel solid and durable, ensuring they’ll last you a while (depending on how hard you’re kicking on a week by week basis.)
An absolutely must-have for any dedicated martial arts practitioner, Boxing gloves will be needed at most of the martial arts gyms you visit or attend. While learning to throw your hands can be loads of fun, you’ll also want to make sure you’re protecting your hands with the necessary padding provided with a standard pair of Boxing gloves.
Depending on your skill level, Boxing gloves can come in many different shapes and sizes, and it’s important for you to equip yourself with the right pair of gloves for your training needs.
Check out below our highly recommended pair of Boxing gloves:
The Everlast Powerlock2 Pro Boxing Gloves offer a considerable upgrade compared to the standard Boxing gloves sold at big-box sporting goods stores. The mix of ample padding and adjustable wrist support make this Boxing glove an outstanding choice for any dedicated Boxer or Mixed Martial Artist.
A Boxing glove with unique hand compartment padding, the Adidas Hybrid 200 Boxing Gloves are a great choice for any beginner to intermediate Boxer or Mixed Martial Artist.
Sporting a recognizable three-stripe design by Adidas, the Adidas Speed Tilt 150 Boxing gloves are a great option for beginners who are about to join a Boxing or Mixed Martial Arts gym on a regular basis.
If you’re 100% passionate about continuing to grow within your respective sport, whether you’re strictly a grappler, striker, or all-around Mixed Martial Arts, a mouth guard is going to always come in handy. As a grappler, especially in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, when you begin to roll with your teammates, you’ll want to equip yourself with a mouth guard. In between scrambles and transitions, limbs can fly anywhere and you don’t want to accidentally get hit in the mouth.
As a striker, whether it’s in Boxing, Kickboxing, or Muay Thai, when you begin to spar, you will want to always have a mouth guard on. Coaches will always tell you to gear up before you spar, in many cases, this means grabbing your head gear, gloves, shin pads (for Muay Thai and Kickboxing) and your mouth guard.
Check out our recommended mouth guard to add to your gym bag:
The Everlast Evergel Mouth Guard is one of the most popular mouth guards found in many Boxing and Mixed Martial Arts practitioners’ gym bags. While you can find this mouth guard in big-box sporting good stores, it’s definitely one of the higher quality mouth guards you can invest in.
Sometimes, bringing a bottle of water to the gym can go over your head, especially if you’re just coming back home from work and you need to quickly get ready to go to the gym. Not only will investing in a water bottle or a 1-gallon water jug help you stay hydrated during training, it will also save you some money over the long term as you won’t have to depend on buying water bottles from the gym (some gyms price their water pretty high, so just be on the lookout).
While this last piece of gear may not be applicable to grappling-only martial artists, having a two to three pound pair of dumbbells in your gym bag can come in handy if you’re someone who likes to get to the gym early and warm up.
Shadow Boxing with a pair of lightweight dumbbells helps condition your shoulders and helps improve your punching speed. Disclaimer: Don’t expect to start punching with speed like Ryan Garcia the first day, it’s something that takes time and consistent training.
Now that you’ve got a good idea of what to add to your gym bag, go ahead and check out our shop as we have many of the pieces of gear noted in this article. If you have any questions, feel free to chat with us using the red bubble at the bottom of your screen.
