Ideal protective gear to wear in training?

Hi all,

With growing paranoia about injuries as I get older, I'm looking to beef up my protective gear to avoid any more enforced time off training. What do you recommend? All thoughts welcome!

I do both stand-up and grappling, so have a mouthguard, cup, gloves, etc. Does anyone here wear knee and/or elbow guards?

How about the new Body Armour from Korpertech:
www.blitzsport.com/Brands/Korpertech

What do you think?

Any thoughts on Mueller elbow pads? www.1000mile.co.uk

 

I think possibly the elbow pads are a bit of overkill really, if you wear a lot of padding and stuff don't forget grappling will become more tricky. With more padding you won't be able to get your arm through as easily etc.
Maybe you should think about what you are doing and which position you are in rather than relying on padding if you know what I mean? I kept banging and scraping my knees so thought about getting knee pads but they are generally quite bulky and would impact on my movement, so I just tried making sure my technique was better and I didn't keep banging them down.

I think the only stuff you need are groin guards, mouthguard ,gloves plus shins if you are going hard in the stand up and then possibly a head guard for full contact stuff.

You will get conditioned as time goes on so the need for equipment such as shins gets less and less.

Plus it'll save you loads of money as protective stuff tends to be expensive!

 

Cant help on the elbow pads or knee pads, but we use a few of these :

http://www.qualitymartialarts.com/popup.cfm?p_n=112657&p_i=112657

Offer a much tighter fit around the ribs and gut allowing you to move more freely than the other type of chest guards you see TKD fighters use. It works well for training in full contact kickboxing and if your doing ground work.

 

You might find people won't want to grapple with you wearing that! In my experience,of even having big people in side control on me what you should probably doing instead is looking to improve your conditioning, there are some good articles on building muscle around your ribs so you can withstand more in training, both stand up and grappling.

If you are doing a lot of grappling I would say an ear guard is more use than any elbow or knee pads as you run the risk of cauliflower ear ,depends how much grappling you do.

 

Do you do stand-up and grappling in the same session or seperately?

 

Hi again,

I agree about too much padding getting in the way of grappling and guess this would be the case for the chest protector. What are the recommended conditioning excercises to support my ribs, etc?

I never bothered with knee pads when I did BJJ, but they are required now I've switched to wrestling. Though I've had trouble getting hold of a decent pair in the UK.

Good point about ear guards. Lots of people have them, but I've not worried overly about cauliflower ear. How bad can it be?

The Mueller elbow pads were recommended in the new products section of a recent issue of Fighters Only magazine (issue 47, page 89). Although I can't see them listed on the 1000 Mile web site.

I use shin pads because I refuse to deaden the nerves on my shins. I'm reckon this sort of conditioning can only do me harm in the long-term. (Besides, I'm not a professional fighter.)

I train in muay Thai and wrestling on different days.

Cheers

 

depending on the sort of ears you have, I would say ear/headguard for wrestling/ground work.
stand up work with shin pads on.

ground guard, gum sheild and gloves are always a must.

 

This is a perfect reply, pretty much.

 

This is what I wear.

Mouthguard
Rashguard
Gloves
Shorts
Cup
Shin-guards

Thats all you need really. When I'm just wrestling, then its just rash guard n shorts n wrestlng boots. I sometimes wear ear guard but not all the time

 

This is a perfect reply, pretty much.

 

I wear a gum shield, a cup, shin guards, gloves, hand wraps and anklets when stand up sparring and a cup, gum shield, gloves, hand wraps and anklets when grappling.

I should probably wear head gear when I do striking also but it costs. I don't see why you would need anything other than this unless you have some personal injury.

Edit: Oh and rash guards and compression shorts. I guess they count as protection.

 

Yeah they are kind of protection. I usually wear anklets for thai .I just think people often need to condition themselves more rather than padding up as your body can take a certain amount without needing to get padded up. Plus its often really annoying for whoever you are sparring/grappling with.

 

Yep, that's what I used to think in my younger days! Just wait until you're older and your main priority becomes training without injury

My arms are well conditioned from my kung fu years. I can block real hard without feeling a thing. That just means that I've "conditioned" my arms by deadening the nerves. Not something that did me any good, IMO. Years of hard contact eventually take their toll on your body. Longevity to continue training into old age is more important to me than bashing my shins until the nerves give up.

 

I agree with the shin guards.I just don't really see the need for stuff like knee and elbow and the stomach guards.I train with some older guys and they don't use that stuff.