Kickboxing is a mixture of martial art styles combining the art of, you guessed it, kicking and punching. Unless you don’t pay attention to those extreme grainy commercials set to angry rock songs, you’ll know that mixed martial arts has blown up in the United States, regardless of its standing traditions and history in the eastern world. You should also know that kickboxing isn’t a precise art (thus the name MMA), and requires a various assortment of items to help fighters train.
Fist and foot style
If the name isn’t a dead giveaway, this style of fighting uses both fist and feet for striking. There’s also grappling, but, not really something you can practice on a lumpy punching bag. Speaking of, that’s obvious item number one in the array of kickboxing merchandise, a punching bag. Well, sort of. In this case, the bag is more like a held up heavy cushion, allowing for 360 degrees of striking potential. That is to say, conditioning requires both throwing the fist and practicing kicks, with the latter requiring a whole spectrum of space to pull off. During this process, it’s also handy for fighters to wear protective gear when not sparring, such as shin guards, gloves, wraps, and whatever else. Not all those bags are nice and cushy. Some are full of sand, and if you’ve bothered to punch sand over and over with all of your strength, you realize how bad a concept that is.
Who needs protection, anyway?
Everyone needs protection in more ways than one. Part of being the best at what you do is sparring with other opponents, flexing your style, learning how to defend, preparing your body for full on combat. But most of the time you will not be fighting for 3 million on primetime, you’ll be fighting with buddies, trainers, or students of kickboxing. This is where all this kickboxing equipment comes in handy, because wailing on each other with blows that can cause internal organ damage is about as fun as it sounds. That’s why most training involves heavy pads, head protection, body guards, and an assortment of things that allow for maximum strike without maximum injury. A majority of the time one avoids needless injury with this type of stuff. Hey, no matter how hardcore MMA fighters want to look, they still have to abide by safety first.
provides a range of kick boxing equipment and other related accessories. View their website for further information.
