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Whether you’re brand new to MMA and Boxing, or you’ve been in the game for years, you need to own a good pair of sparring gloves. However, most people who train don’t.  After making the decision to start boxing, mma or training muay thai, most people head out to the local sporting good store the day before their first class and pick up what’s available. Most Sporting Goods stores, particularly the chain stores, carry a very limited supply of boxing equipment.  Sure they have the bags, stands and hand wraps, but the selection of sparring gloves are typically limited to Everlast and Everlast only.  All in all, Everlast is a good manufacturer of boxing equipment. Everlast has a strong brand recognition and because of this, they are able to provide equipment for professionals as well as the average Joe who plans on hitting the bag in their basement.  In order to cater to the average Joe, who typically thinks their a fighter for a week, Everlast has to sell sparring gloves a price point acceptable for sale at a chain Sporting Good store.  Make sense?  So, you go to the store the night before you plan on taking your first lesson, you have no clue what to buy, you know Everlast is a good name and you assume that the gloves are good for you, right?  No… because now you’re stuck with these gloves for the next 2 years and most likely it’s not what you need.

Instead of going out and making the same mistake that all first timers make, consider some of the factors that become important as you advance your skills.

• The Weight of the Glove.  Boxing and MMA sparring gloves come in a several weights: 8 ounce, 12oz, 14oz, 16oz and 18oz for instance. If you plan on being a head hunter, pissing off your sparring partner and coach, why not go for the 8oz gloves?  You’ll be as fast as Mike Quick Swick with your hands and you’ll find that you’re limiting your progress.  A heavier glove means more work for your shoulders and you want to build those tendons to achieve power and quickness.  If you’re a women, go for the 10 ouncers, they should do you just fine, especially if they’re pink. As a man, 12oz gloves are a good starting point, but try to bump it up a little to a 14oz.

• Padding – If you’re planning on sparring, think about padding.  Most likely it’s going to be hitting someone directly in the face for two to three rounds a session.  Be sure to choose a glove that will give a little on impact.  If the glove looks and feels a little puffy, then it will give a little on impact and create a more pleasant relationship with your sparring buddies.  Not only will your sparring partner appreciate this, but additionally you’re coach’s hands.  After holding the pads for a long training session, the impact on your hands begins to add up.  Picking a well padding glove will give a little relief to your coach.

• The Fit – The most important factor of all is the fit.  You have to make sure that the gloves you select fit you comfortably.  Make sure that all of your digits fit in the glove naturally and nothing feels forced and remember that you’ll be wearing hand wraps to protect your knucks, so be sure to factor that in.  But, with time the gloves will loosen up, so choose a glove that has a snug fit with your wraps on.  Make sure that there’s little pressure on your wrists. If you’re wrists are too constricted when punching, you’ll be sure to jack them up upon impact, so pick a glove that feels comfortable.

So, with all of this in mind, what’s one to buy?  One of my favorite gloves for sparring and padwork are the “Elite Molded Foam” stand up gloves by Throwdown.  The gloves come in sizes 14oz, 16oz and 18oz, are injected with a foam molded core to provide the padding necessary to protect your hands, but with enough cushioning to give your sparring partner a break. The gloves fit snuggly due to this foam core, but break in quickly.  After two long training sessions you’ll begin to fit comfortably in these gloves with your professional length wraps. At a price point of $89.99 from Elite MMA, it’s a price point slightly above the average glove, but with the quality of a professional training glove (and a bad ass logo).

If you spar often, then most likely you’ve learned over the years the value of having good headgear.  There are a number of things that can go wrong when buying headgear.  The first and most common, is purchasing headgear that is not designed to fit your head comfortably.  Due to discomfort, you probably bought something a little bigger than what actually fits you and as a result, when you start sweating, you find out that you’re catching more shots to the head because the darn headgear shifted and you can’t see a thing.  Trust me, I’ve been there before.  After realizing this inherit problem with average headgear, you try to work around it by buying a nice cushioning piece, you know, the ones with the chinstrap with notches.  The headgear sits nicely on your head, doesn’t move much and is a good fit. The sparring sessions go well, until one day you catch a serious shot, your head’s spinning and the only thing you want to do is get that headgear off fast to get some air.  The problem is, you can’t get the damn chin strap off fast enough with sparring gloves.  Your coach runs over, he starts fidgeting with the strap and five minutes later you’re finally find some comfort.  Not fun, right?

So, what’s one to do?  Good mma headgear is not easy to come by.  First and foremost, you have to think practically about what you buy.  Going to Modells and buying the $35 Everlast headgear isn’t going to cut it.  Trust me, I’ve made that mistake before.  If you plan on sparring regularly, you’ve got to step it up, find something that is comfortable, has thick foam padding and covers all of the vital regions of the head with quality protection.  This not only includes the typical helmet shape regions of the head, but additionally the cheek bones and chin.  Covering the cheek bones will not only protect you from blacken your eye, but it will additionally minimize any impact to your nose. Finally, make sure to get headgear with Velcro, this will allow you to take it off quickly when in need.

So, now that you know what you need to buy, where do you buy it?  There’s not a lot of sites that offer a good selection of headgear that meet this criteria.  The best site by far is Elite MMA, which features 25 different types of headgear, compared with the average mma gear company that offers 5.  My favorite headgear that they offer, at an amazing value is the Face/Chin Combo Headgear.  It has sound protection at an awesome price of just $79.99.  Equally as nice is the Fighting Pro Headgear at the same price point, $79.99.  Check it out and let us know what you think.

It’s the second week of MMA Gear Friday. So what do we have to share with all of the mma boys and girls out there? The January 2008 Edition of MMA Authority Magazine! The January 2008 edition of MMA Authority comes with a unique twist that all of you MMAFightGirls.com fans would love, a 2008 MMA Authority Girl Calendar! The Calendar includes pictures of some of the hottest names in the MMA Modeling, Fighting and Ring Girl business, including Amber Nichole Miller, Taryn Walker, Tiffany Connell, Ashley Gellar, Kloey Jacobs, Lexi Lombardelli, Jessica Barton, CJ Gibson and more!

In addition to a sweet calendar that will hang by my office desktop for all of 2008, the January Edition of the magazine has many interesting MMA Articles, including an interview with Dan Henderson which touches upon his career in MMA and his future retirement, an interview with former NFL defensive lineman, current MMA fighter, Marcus Jones, who’s very humble about the sport of MMA, some questions and answers about getting into the sport of MMA professionally, coverage from many of the big MMA events including NAMMAE and some nutritional tips.

Overall the magazine offers some interesting articles that any MMA fan would love to read and with a full calendar of smoking hot MMA models and ring girls… I think it’s time that you stop drooling at the pictures on this screen and run out and get yourself a copy. You can go straight to the MMA Authority website and place your order, or visit a local Barnes and Noble, B. Dalton Book Store, Books a Million, Walmart, Blockbuster, FYE or Strawberries to pick up a copy of the January 2008 Edition of MMA Authority Magazine.

Here are some of the excellent sample pictures from the pages of the calendar.

Don’t hate because we’ve got the coolest Muay Thai graphic designs on our chest!

For our 1st weekly (hopefully weekly) MMA Fight Girls “MMA Gear Friday”, TUFF Boxing / Muay Thai Stuff was awesome enough to send us a Muay Thai T-Shirt and Tank Top all the way from Bangkok Thailand! I want to give a big thanks to TUFF and Muay Thai Stuff for their love and support. On to my story…

Excited as all hell I picked up the TUFF package the other day at the post office. Upon opening the package, my first thought was… “top notch”. TUFF packages each of their T-shirts in a unique black and clear muay thai illustration package (pictured below, but the picture doesn’t do it any justice), along with a TUFF Boxing catalog.

The packages each have their own unique illustration printed on them and are quite classy. In addition to the packages, the shipment came with a TUFF Boxing catalog that only made me drool over all of the additionally awesome designs TUFF has. Like the packaging, the catalog is of high quality – good print / stock. Not that the quality of the package or catalog matters much to most people, but it does say a lot about the quality and attention to detail that a company gives… which could only reflect on the quality of product, right? For sure. If you’re putting that much time and quality into a package, you must have one get quality product… which is true about the T-Shirts.

Upon pulling the T-Shirt and Tank Top out of their packages, I was very happy with the quality of the shirts – the shirts are well made and soft – but not thin. The prints are vivid and tough – meaning that it should last a ton of machine washes, and the designs… what else can I say… the designs don’t get any better. I love all of the TUFF Boxing illustrations, don’t you?

Check out the pictures of the awesome swag that TUFF Boxing sent to us and be sure to check out TUFF Boxing’s website to see all of their great designs and to buy some fairly priced muay thai clothing.

Additionally check out Muay Thai Stuff’s website for the latest muay thai clothing designs and fighting gear. Thanks for your support – and making my day this week.

MMA Fight Girls has started a new concept that we hope we can maintain each week – MMA Gear Friday. Each Friday, we plan to review some free MMA Gear that companies throw our way. Whether it be Shorts/Trunks (Boxing, Muay Thai, Grappling, BJJ, whatever…), Gloves (Boxing, Muay Thai), Pads (Shin Pads, Thai Pads, Focus Mits), Wraps, Bags (Heavy Bags, Speed Bags…) T-Shirts, Tank Tops, Hoodies, Magazines, Books, Supplements, Mouth Pieces or something unmentioned, we’d love to review it and get the word out there.

So, if you have a product that you would like to promote, we’d love some free swag (size Large will do) to write about. If you’re interested, Contact MMA Fight Girls.