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The Front Squat
As you may have already discovered, the squat is at the top of the heap (along with deadlifts) as one of the most effective overall exercises for stimulating body composition changes (muscle gain and fat loss). This is because exercises like squats and deadlifts use more muscle groups under a heavy load than almost any other weight bearing exercises known to man. Hence, these exercises stimulate the greatest hormonal responses (growth hormone, testosterone, etc.) of all exercises.
In fact, university research studies have even proven that inclusion of squats into a training program increases upper body development, in addition to lower body development, even though upper body specific joint movements are not performed during the squat. Whether your goal is gaining muscle mass, losing body fat, building a strong and functional body, or improving athletic performance, the basic squat and deadlift (and their variations) are the ultimate solution.
If you don’t believe me that squats and deadlifts are THE basis for a lean and powerful body, then go ahead and join all of the other overweight people pumping away mindlessly for hours on boring cardio equipment.
Squats can be done with barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, or even just body weight. Squats should only be done with free weights – NEVER with a Smith machine! My ebook, The Truth About Six Pack Abs contains the full story on why machines are so inferior and even potentially DANGEROUS compared to free weights.
The type of squat that people are most familiar with is the barbell back squat where the bar is resting on the trapezius muscles of the upper back. Many professional strength coaches believe that front squats (where the bar rests on the shoulders in front of the head) and overhead squats (where the bar is locked out in a snatch grip overhead throughout the squat) are more functional to athletic performance than back squats with less risk of lower back injury.
I feel that a combination of all three (not necessarily during the same phase of your workouts) will yield the best results for overall muscular development, body fat loss, and athletic performance. Front squats are moderately more difficult than back squats, while overhead squats are considerably more difficult than either back squats or front squats. I’ll cover overhead squats in a future newsletter issue.
If you are only accustomed to performing back squats, it will take you a few sessions to become comfortable with front squats, so start out light. After a couple sessions of practice, you will start to feel the groove and be able to increase the poundage.
To perform front squats:
The front squat recruits the abdominals to a much higher degree for stability due to the more upright position compared with back squats. It is mostly a lower body exercise, but is great for functionally incorporating core strength and stability into the squatting movement. It can also be slightly difficult to learn how to properly rest the bar on your shoulders. There are two ways to rest the bar on the front of the shoulders.
In the first method, you step under the bar and cross your forearms into an “X” position while resting the bar on the dimple that is created by the shoulder muscle near the bone, keeping your elbows up high so that your arms are parallel to the ground. You then hold the bar in place by pressing the thumb side of your fists against the bar for support.
Alternatively, you can hold the bar by placing your palms face up and the bar resting on your fingers against your shoulders. For both methods, your elbows must stay up high to prevent the weight from falling. Your upper arms should stay parallel to the ground throughout the squat. Find out which bar support method is more comfortable for you.
Then, initiate the squat from your hips by sitting back and down keeping the weight on your heels as opposed to the balls of your feet. Squat down to a position where your thighs are approximately parallel to the ground, then press back up to the starting position. Keeping your weight more towards your heels is the key factor in squatting to protect your knees from injury and develop strong injury resistant knee joints.
Keep in mind – squats done correctly actually strengthen the knees; squats done incorrectly can damage the knees. Practice first with an un-weighted bar or a relatively light weight to learn the movement. Most people are surprised how hard this exercise works your abs once you learn the correct form.
START/FINISH
MIDPOINT
For complete descriptions of over 50 of the most effective full body exercises for stripping away body fat while developing a rock-hard body, download my e-book The Truth About Six Pack Abs
| By Vince DelMonte |
| Everywhere you turn, someone’s promising the next secret to getting 6 pack abs. Some of these so called ’secrets’ have some degree of accuracy, while others, not so much. Deciphering which are the best methods to getting 6 pack abs is going to be critical to your having success with this goal.
The biggest area you need to focus on when trying to obtain 6 pack abs is going to be on your diet. Like it or not, the old saying that ‘abs are made in the kitchen’, is probably one of the most truthful statements in the fitness industry. If your diet isn’t in line, your stomach is going to show it. So, what should you be doing with your diet? First, ensure you are getting enough protein. Not only is protein going to form the key building blocks you need to build muscle tissue, but it’s also going to provide you with a better feeling of fullness than eating just carbohydrates alone would for example. Protein is more “expensive” than any other macronutrient meaning that your body will burn more calories breaking down protein compared to carbs and fats. Next, don’t be afraid of dietary fat that comes from primarily monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats such as olive oils, fish oils, a mix of nuts, natural peanut butter and avocado. While it’s true that eating fat will increase your calories fast, as long as you keep it between 20-30% it can be one of the best things to get 6 pack abs fast. The important point here is that dietary fat helps keep your insulin level stable, which, when high enough can actually cause fat gain itself. Furthermore, dietary fat will keep you feeling the fullest for the longest duration in time; longer than both protein or carbohydrates would. Interestingly, some diets high in fat can get you 6 pack abs fast because your body learn to metabolize fat for energy. So, while you do need to watch it, be sure you are getting some in your diet. Finally, when it comes to carbohydrate intake and getting 6 pack abs, you want to focus most of your carbohydrate intake around the post workout period. Why? The biggest reason for this is because this is when your body is going to need those carbohydrates the most and will really suck them up into the muscle tissue. When you eat them at this time, it is least likely that they will turn into body fat. Additionally, consuming carbohydrates during this period will also help to aid with muscle recovery and repair, so that means less down time from the gym for you. If getting 6 pack abs fast is your goal than each meal you should consist of 1-2 cups of raw vegetables to control insulin levels, improve absorption of your protein and flood your body with vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants. So, if you are aiming to get 6 pack abs in the coming months, have a good hard look at your diet. That is the big secret that must not be overlooked if you are to succeed. |
|
By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com
I’ve been meaning to write this email for a long time. Today I’m
going to give you the story of how I solved the problem of getting an efficient and effective fat loss program finished in 45 minutes. Essentially, how I invented Turbulence Training.
And then I’ll end with a sample TT workout for you…
But first, let’s take a trip down memory lane to the winter of
98-99. I was but a lowly grad student, studying the effects of
androstenedione (the supplement taken by the might Mark McGwire during his record-breaking home run quest in ‘98).
In my study (which was published in the Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology for any science nerds like myself out there), we had guys use the supplement and go through a couple of weight training sessions. By February of ‘99 I was stuck in the lab, analyzing the blood samples using some fancy radio-active isotopes.
And when I say stuck in the lab, I mean STUCK. I’d get there at
7am, and record my last data point at 11pm. Sixteen hours of
mad science. And if I wasn’t there, I was downstairs in the
medical library, studying papers on testosterone and training.
Now coming from a very athletic background, this sedentary
lifestyle didn’t sit well with me. But there I was, studing for a
degree in Exercise Physiology and left with no time for exercise.
Or so I thought.
Fortunately, I actually had a 50 minute window once per day of
“down-time” while the lab’s gamma-counter analyzed blood samples.
That left me 50 minutes to get to the gym (5 minutes across campus) and get a workout in the remaining 40 or so minutes. I knew that if I applied my studies to the workout, I could get maximum results in minimum time.
As a former athlete, I knew that I had to find a way to stay fit
and to avoid the fat gain that comes with working long hours in a
sedentary environment. And I also had to stay true to the
high-school bodybuilder I once was, so there was no way I was
willing to sacrifice my muscle to one of those long-cardio, low
protein fat-loss plans that were popular at the time.
Instead, I had to draw on my academic studies and my experiences working with athletes as the school’s Strength & Conditioning Coach.
I knew that sprint intervals were associated with more fat loss
than slow cardio, and I knew that you could also increase aerobic fitness by doing sprints (but you can’t increase sprint performance by doing aerobic training).
So clearly, intervals were (and ARE!) superior to long slow cardio.
I had seen first hand the incredible results of sprint intervals in
the summer and fall, as the athletes made huge fitness improvements and shed winter fat in a short time using my interval programs. I knew that intervals had to be the next step in the evolution of cardio.
The biggest benefit of intervals? A lot of results in a short
amount of time. I knew that I only had 40 minutes to train, and
therefore I could only spend 15-20 minutes doing intervals.
Now onto the strength training portion of the workouts. I knew that a high-volume bodybuilding program wasn’t going to cut it - I just didn’t have time. But in the past year I had read so many lifting studies, that I knew exactly what exercises I needed to do to maximize my lifting time in the gym.
Those exercises were standing, multi-muscle, movements such as squats, presses, rows, power cleans, and plenty of other standing single-leg exercises. I knew that those exercises would bring me far more results than those people sitting on machines would ever achieve.
And I also knew that I had to lift heavier than the average Joe or Jane Gym-goer lifts. I just knew that doing lighter weights and high-reps wasn’t going to cut it. And a research study from 2001 later showed that I was right - when women did 8 reps per set, they had a significantly greater increase in post-workout metabolism than if they did 15 reps per set.
So I had my plan. Bust my tail over to the gym, through the cold, dreary Canadian winter afternoon, and do a quick but thorough warmup (specific to my lifts - none of that 5 minutes on the treadmill waste of time).
Once I got through the warm-up, I did as many sets as I could in the remainder of the 20 minutes for strength training.
At that point, I knew that supersets were the only way to go if I
wanted to maximize the number of sets I could do…so the
non-competing superset of Turbulence Training was put in place.
By non-competing, I mean that the 2 exercises in the superset don’t interfere with one another. So you can use upper and lower body exercises together, or pushing and pulling exercises. Just be careful not to use two grip-intensive exercises together in a superset - otherwise, one exercise will suffer, if not both.
And then I followed up the strength training with intervals, as I
knew these had to follow the lifting, otherwise it would not be the correct exercise order. Remember, intervals first leads to
premature fatigue. Lift first, cardio later. Forget that old wives
tale about doing cardio first to burn more fat. That’s junk.
You know, I remember the exact day and exact workout that this all came together into the Turbulence Training program. It hit me as I was finishing my intervals. I knew I had found something that was like fat loss magic.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a way to put it in a pill. But I’ve
been able to put it down on paper in all of the TT manuals.
The exact workout I used that day went like this…
Warm-up
1 set of Bodyweight Squats
1 set of pushups
1 set of Squats with the empty bar
1 set of light dumbbell chest presses
1 set of moderate weight barbell squats
1 set of moderate weight dumbbell chest presses
Strength Training Superset #1
Barbell Squats paired with Dumbbell Chest Presses
3 supersets, aiming for 8 reps per side per set
Strength Training Superset #2
DB Rows paired with Barbell Forward Lunges
3 supersets, aiming for 8 reps per set
Stationary Bike Intervals
After a warmup, I did 6 intervals of 45 seconds work and 45 seconds rest, finishing with a cool-down.
And from that point in time, I’ve tried to share this and all the
other Turbulence Training workouts with as many men and women as possible. The same men and women that I would see day-in and day-out performing the same ineffective slow-cardio fat loss programs, and not making a darn change month after month. And every day they would see me, soaked in sweat, feeling great and looking lean, and finishing another TT workout.
Eventually I noticed these other men and women weren’t around as consistently as before, and then soon enough they would drop out completely - after all, they weren’t getting results with their slow cardio and aerobics classes (yep, those were still around in ‘99!).
And so here we are today…thousands of TT users later, with
national fitness magazines like Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, and
Shape spreading the good word about Turbulence Training.
Thousands of TT users, dozens of personal trainers, and even
several national fitness magazines all agree with me, Turbulence
Training is the #1 way to fast fat loss.
Thanks for being a part of the TT Lifestyle Revolution, and for
sharing this new and improved fat loss training and cardio system with the world.
So when you see someone frustrated with their ineffective fat loss program, tell them there is a better way. It’s research-based, efficient, and most of all, effective. And yes, it goes against the crowd. But it works.
And it’s now better than ever,
Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training
PS - Don’t know where to start?
If you are a beginner, start by reading Dr. Mohr’s nutrition
guidelines…eating properly will be the biggest factor in your
early success.
Beginners should also start with the Introductory TT workouts to prepare their muscles for the upcoming intense training.
For others, it’s best to start with the Intermediate Level TT
workouts. If those aren’t enough of a challenge, you can move onto the Original TT workout and follow the 16-week advanced program right through.
If at any time you need a break, try the TT Bodyweight 4-week plan.
And then finish off with the bonus programs to cap off a full 24 weeks of Advanced TT fat loss workouts.
About the Author
Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit www.TurbulenceTraining.com
By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com
There are so many fat loss myths out there in “exercise-land” that I was hired by Men’s Fitness magazine to write about one myth each month.
After all, by now you’ve probably heard that if you don’t do
60-minutes of cardio in your fat burning zone on an empty stomach while Venus is in line with Jupiter, you’ll never burn fat.
The problem with myths is that not only are they wrong and give false hope to millions of people trying to lose weight, but they also waste your time and mental effort.
I have also seen these myths used as justification for cheating on
a diet, watching countless men and women justify their “treats”
because they believe they are on some type of magical exercise
program or nutrition plan.
I could go on for days about fitness myths, but I cut my list from
30 down to the Top 5 Fat Loss Workout Myths today. I’ll save the other 25 for future newsletters.
Myth #1: You have to do cardio first thing in the morning on an
empty stomach.
Relax. You don’t have to hop on the treadmill at 4:30am every
morning. Let’s allow common sense to dictate when and how you exercise.
If you want to work out first thing in the morning, and I know that is the best time for many TT readers, by all means, go ahead and do it. There’s nothing magical about this time - although it is often the only time many of day many people have to themselves.
We need to think “outside of the hour” of exercise and realize that calorie burning and fat burning goes on for 24-hours. Forget about the theories and look at the big picture.
It doesn’t matter when you exercise - as long as you exercise
intensely and consistently. Focus on relatively high-intensity
workouts to increase your metabolism for as many hours after
exercise as possible. That is best done with interval training and
resistance training.
Myth #2: You have to do your cardio in your “fat burning zone”.
Again, nonsense.
While you might burn a larger proportion of total calories as fat
when you exercise in your fat burning zone, you burn fewer calories overall by exercising at such a low intensity.
When you increase your workout intensity and get out of your
so-called “fat burning zone”, you burn more total calories, and as a result, more fat.
In addition, the “fat burning zone” training doesn’t put
“turbulence” on your muscles…so you don’t burn many calories in the post-exercise time period. But with interval training, you burn a significant amount of calories for hours after training, and
that leads to more fat loss.
I’ve worked with hundreds of people that have avoided the fat
burning zone while still managing to lose dozens of pounds of fat.
The “fat burning zone” is one of the biggest fitness myths of all
time.
Myth #3: You have to do cardio for 20 minutes before you burn fat.
When I hear this, I picture a fat-burning switch in my body that
turns on only after I’ve been doing “cardio” for 20 minutes. But
what if I only exercise for 19 minutes and 59 seconds? Are
you telling me that I won’t have burned any fat? That’s ridiculous.
What if I did it on an empty stomach in the morning and in my
target heart rate zone? (read that one sarcastically!)
I’ll say it one last time. We need to be more concerned with our
24-hour metabolism, not how much fat or even how many calories are burned during the workout.
Myth 4: Drinking ice cold water will help you burn calories and
lose fat.
Standing in line at the grocery store is a great place to pick up
the latest fat loss myths. You’ll also find this one all over the
Internet.
This myth often comes along with some calculations showing that by drinking 8 glasses of ice-cold water you can burn 70 calories per day. I don’t believe that actually holds true in real life. Regardless, drinking cold water is not going to burn any more fat off your body than drinking room temperature water.
Don’t get me wrong, I strongly believe you should drink 12 glasses of water per day, but the temperature of your water won’t have any effect on your overall fat loss success.
Myth #5: Adding one pound of muscle will burn 50 extra calories each day.
Uh-oh, now I’m cutting down a myth that supports my use of strength training in a fat loss program. But I have an obligation to set the record straight about this extremely prevalent myth (even though I just saw a big name fitness expert perpetuate this myth in a recent article!).
This myth sounds so good. Add a pound ouf muscle, boost your
metabolism 50 calories. That doesn’t seem out of line at all.
But do the math for a guy that puts on 30 pounds of muscle. Does his metabolism really increase by 1500 calories? Absolutely not. For an average guy, that would require his resting metabolism to increase from 2500 calories to 4000 calories per day. How would he be able to keep any of that muscle with a metabolism like that? He’d have to eat like a pig forever.
So when you look at the big picture, you can see this little myth
start to fall apart.
That’s not to say you should stop your strength training, but just don’t use this myth as an excuse to cheat on your diet.
Bonus Myth: Negative Calorie Foods Cause You to Lose Weight
According to the “experts”, a negative calorie food requires more energy to digest than it provides you when you eat it. And included in the negative calorie food list are apples and bananas.
So by this logic, I would actually starve to death if I had nothing
to eat but apples (because I would have a net energy loss from
eating a so-called “negative calorie” food).
There is no such thing as a negative calorie food.
It’s a shame that people are out there promoting this stuff, and
it’s too bad that so many people fall for it.
Remember the old phrase, “if it sounds too good to be true, it
probably is.”
Instead, let the common sense fat loss principles apply. It’s going to take consistent effort, working hard at your workouts and with your nutrition to get the results you want.
I guarantee you that Turbulence Training will successfully
guide you to the fat loss you deserve and desire.
Sincerely,
Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training
About the Author
Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit www.TurbulenceTraining.com
By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com
Men’s Fitness magazine recently asked me for 3 of my best fat loss secrets. Since most times the magazines just don’t have enough space to run my full tips, I thought I’d give you a more detailed explanation of my secrets here (plus a few extra bonus tips that I didn’t send to the magazine).
Secret #1 - Focus on burning carbohydrate, not fat, during your
fat-loss workouts.
Sounds backwards, right? But not when you look at how I structure my workouts. Remember that Turbulence Training focuses on resistance training and interval training. Both of these use carbohydrate as the main source of energy. So it’s obvious the workout is designed to burn carbohydrates during the training session.
I have no interest in you trying to train in your “target heart
rate zone” for fat burning (aka - the fat burning zone). The whole idea of a fat-burning zone is an over-simplified idea of how the body works during exercise.
Leave the inefficient fat burning zone to the mis-educated
trainers in the commercial gyms (that not surprisingly, also want to sell you a heart rate monitor so you can stay in your “fat
burning heart rate zone”).
If you want to get the most results in the least amount of time,
focus on burning carbohydrates, not fat.
Why do my fat loss workouts focus on burning carbohydrate rather than fat? In order to burn more calories after the workout, that’s why. When you exercise with intervals and heavy resistance training, your body uses more calories in the hours after exercise than it would if you did traditional cardio and lifted lighter weights.
Alwyn Cosgrove calls this ‘afterburn’, and I call it ‘Turbulence’.
By any name it gives you the same results - maximum
improvements in your body composition (helping you lose fat while gaining muscle).
Secret #2 - Use a range of repetitions in your strength training
workouts.
In order to train more muscle fibers and burn more carbohydrates, I have clients use a range of repetitions within the same workout. My workouts now use 6, 8, and 12 reps per set in order to work the muscle the most effectively.
This will burn more carbohydrates and promote as much muscle growth as possible when you are keeping the calories low.
Secret #3 - Use the stationary cycle for interval training.
I choose the stationary bike for intervals whenever possible
because cycling against a resistance can help maintain muscle mass.
Cycling against a resistance also allows you to perform a large
amount of mechanical work, and that is a key determinant of the Turbulence in my training.
But please note: I don’t use low-intensity, fast pedaling
’spinning’ intervals as I’m convinced that the hard, resistance
based intervals are more effective for fat loss. My clients only
cycle against a strong resistance in their intervals.
I really like the bike, but there are many other ways to do
intervals. Use what works for you, but if you are at a plateau, try the bike.
Secret #4 - Increase meal frequency
Okay, so this isn’t really a secret to anyone that has read about
fat loss. But a 2005 study from the American Journal of Clinical
Nutrition showed that eating 6 times per day was associated with eating fewer calories per day, lowering cholesterol levels, and lowering post-meal insulin levels.
Combine an increased meal frequency with an increased protein and fiber intake, and you’ll see your body composition improve rapidly.
If you need more nutrition help, then you’ll love the new
Turbulence Training Nutrition Guide for Men & Women - written by Dr. Chris Mohr, Ph.D.
See below for more details…
Secret #5 - My Synergistic Turbulence Training Workouts
My Turbulence Training Fat Loss workouts are fast becoming the most effective way to burn fat, build muscle, and get lean. The synergistic strength training-interval training workouts are
efficient and effective - getting you in and out of the gym in
under an hour.
Here are some tips that you can use for an advanced training phase
- use these tips for 2 weeks then return to your normal training
schedule:
a) Add 10 seconds to each interval but maintain the intensity
b) Add in some bodyweight circuits (10-20 minutes per day) done in the morning or evening (if you do your regular workout in the AM, do your bodyweight circuits after dinner; otherwise, do the bw circuits first thing in the AM, and then do your regular workout at lunch or later in the afternoon or evening)
If you are advanced, you can use squats, pushups, and bodyweight rows for your circuit.
If you are a beginner, you could use lying hip extensions, modified pushups, and stick-ups.
c) Add an extra set to each exercise in the first superset you do
in each workout.
Again, use these three tips for an advanced fat loss period of two
weeks, then return to a normal training schedule.
But always stick to the best fat loss nutrition plan possible.
If you have any other questions, just let me know.
Sincerely,
Craig Ballantyne
Author, Turbulence Training
P.S. Big Nutrition Announcement!
The Turbulence Training Nutrition Guide for Men & Women - written by Dr. Chris Mohr, Ph.D., is ready for you.
Here are just some of the things you’ll learn from Dr. Mohr…
1) How to calculate your calorie needs (p. 6)
2) Calorie recommendations for obese individuals (p.7)
3) The 23 types of sugar (many hidden!) to avoid (p. 9)
4) The 20 whole-grain sources to fuel your fat loss program (p9)
5) Over 60 fruits and vegetables that should be added to your diet (p. 10)
6) The 16 protein sources you should select most often (p. 13)
7) Shocking trans-fat content of 18 common foods - find out which food is the deadliest in terms of fat content (p. 16)
8 ) The 9 Fat Sources you should select most often (p. 17)
9) Dr. Mohr’s 12 Rules for Fat Loss (p. 18)
10) The TT Nutrition Plan for Men (p. 19)
11) The TT Nutrition Plan for Women (p. 23)
12) Bonus Supplement Report: The Truth About Fat Loss Pills (p. 27)
About the Author
Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit www.TurbulenceTraining.com
MMA Gear like my shin, arm and head guards are all smelling REAL bad. What are some things to get rid of the smell after training?
You must be using the crap out of your MMA Gear. Well your compression shorts I’d think you’d wash in the washer. If you use one of those stupid fanny floss jock straps then you should look into compression shorts to hold your cup because fanny floss is a little …uh…you know…kinda funny like.
As far as your mouth piece/mouth guard goes keep it stored in a clear container in your refrigerator and wash it off with hydrogen peroxide before each use. If you use tape then we both know that’s disposable, but if you use 100 ft. hand wraps then you’ll have to wash those as well. My washer works fine for mine.
Your board shorts and/or fight trunks should be cool in the washer so should your shirts as well your grappling gloves will be a way different story though. You should treat those kind of like bowling shoes as weird as that may sound. Spray them after every three or four uses with “Fabreeze” dude. I’ve found that “Fabreeze” works best on grappling gloves (just the insides spray into open palm area and no where else). Don’t spray them from a point blank range though, kind of hold the pump bottle back away from your gloves about like say 8 to 12 inches or so and spray each one about four or five good sprays. Leave them set out with the open palm side up and let them air dry without heat or a fan, just let them slow dry over night. That’s about the best advice I can give and it should work just fine and keep the smell down as well as keep your fight gear in fairly decent condition.
One more thing, throw those wussy a** shin and arm guards in the garbage! Kick the Heavy bag with your shin unprotected. The calcium in your bones will add to the thickness of your bones as you strike with each kick and toughen up your legs. (Bruising Will Occure As Well As Blisters ) Is your sparring partner afraid of a Thai kick or something? Is that why you use shin and arm pads?
Kind of like bumper cars ain’t it? Oh well just spray the “fabreeze” on the insides of the pads only not on the leather/vinyl what ever it is that you use and let them air dry. To each his own on training man…cough…cough. Head Gear I can see, but geeze this is MMA right?
Those of us who have a passion for the sport of MMA know that finding the right MMA Clothing will help you on the mat and demonstrate your commitment outside the gym… but is there more to it than that?
Of course there are people who just like to wear the name brand gear but don’t fight… that’s OK if they don’t put on a show and talk a game when there’s nothing to back it up… you know who I’m talking about.
The sport of MMA has been growing faster than almost any other sport out there due to its publicity from the Ultimate Fighting Champion fights and Reality TV shows of the new and upcoming fighters. It’s hard to believe the sport has only been in the limelight since the early 90’s.
Don’t think for a second that this sport is only for dudes that have cannons instead of arms and a face that could make a pit bull piss itself… this sport is for both men and women and it’s growing for the ex “jocks” that want to challenge themselves again off the field.
If you’ve read this far you probably look deeper into the sport of MMA than most people do. You see that the sport is more than just a round of blood bath fighting and knock out’s, but there’s actually a deep rooted art to it.
When you’re in the ring every movement is carefully calculated, every breath is considered, and every blink of the eye is watched. You have to follow your opponent as if you were in a high stakes poker game in Vegas, only the inexperienced think pure strength will get you through.
The same goes for the clothing and equipment you use. If you’re using name brand equipment just because it looks cool but the function sucks, good riddance to your chances of winning. Having the right MMA Clothing in the ring will give you the flexibility to move and flow the way your mind and body need to.
Almost every big name fighter is sporting a name brand on their back and ass, either their own company or one that hooks them up. Every fighter and fan has a preference and style. So opinion on what’s the best brand doesn’t matter, what matters is staying true to yourself and representing what you believe in.
So when you think of MMA, look at it as an art. And when you use the MMA Gear and wear the MMA Clothing think of it as a symbol of your lifestyle not just a name brand.
