what do you guys use to wrap your feet and how? i figured its better to have them when doing bag work.
Are you talking about the ankle supports? http://www.muaythaistuff.com/product_detail.php?Product_ID=NTM-AK008
How did you figure it's better to have them when doing bag work? Kickboxing will have roughly the same sort of bag routine as Muay Thai. In Muay Thai we don't wrap our feet. For several reasons: 1) If you have anything covering the ball of the foot - you increase the risk of injury by slipping and falling. 2) If you don't allow your ankle to remain flexible then you're likely to run into some sort of injury or breakage issues. The flexibility of your ankle allows you to dissipate the force of your kick... if that force is sent directly into a stiff ankle... you're looking at problems. 3) If you continually had them wrapped up then you never toughen up your feet to bag work, let alone someones face or shins. 4) Often times you see n00bs in the gym with all the finest gear... lol... they've got it all and then some.. and the thing they seem to prance around in the most are ankle supports. It doesn't make their kicks any better. 5) The kids in the camps in Thailand show up barefoot in a pair of worn out and faded shorts... and they get on just fine with kicking. That is the example to follow. You don't need lots of gear to learn technique or to condition yourself for something like Muay Thai or Kickboxing. In short... wrapping your feet is a waste of time.
Slip - I figured you would be the guy to ask as I have no real clue about leg kick/thai equipment because I don't do it myself... What actually are the ankle supports/anklets worn for? Most fighters seem to wear these and my guess is that it's one of two things: Support for the ankle - much in the same way a knee support works. However I can't see much use for these unless there was some form of ankle injury. Some mild form of protection of the instep - can't see as it would provide a lot of protection. Also, the instep is rarely ever (only because of error) used for a kick in thai boxing.
Whether they work or not is another thing, usually one of the first things people buy because there cheap, and everyone wants to fit in.
Yeah basically. I've got a couple pairs. But they just sit in the drawer. They usually wear out too fast if you train daily - so just one more expense. Supposedly they're for ankle support. But they're not going to stop any ankle injury I don't think. The Thai guys love to wear the pink ones and their are also a ton with pink shorts. Go figure. Some of the hardest men on the planet and some of the girliest colors too. The color pink for men in much of Asia doesn't carry the same stigma as in the western world.
1 of my daughters wears flo pink shortd, ankles and gloves, Were the other is all in black, both train full contact. chalk & cheese.
