This is a new section on Fightstorepro inspired by the amount of advice we quite often need to give either on the phone or in the Newcastle City Store. Whether you are buying equipment for a son or daughter starting Thai Boxing, decided to take up the sport recently or if you have just joined the University Thai Boxing Society during freshman week this article is for you. So lets proceed with
Beginners Muay Thai Equipment
Muay Thai Equipment for anyone starting the sport consists of a few basic personal items which are mainly there for protection during training. The base essentials here are as follows:
- Boxing Gloves
- Shinguards (Thai)
- Gumshield (Whether you attempt sparring or not!)
- Groinguard
- Handwraps
The optional extras would be a set of Thai shorts and potentially a set of bag gloves. During this article we are going to offer two options on budget Option a) Low Budget of overall £85 Option b) Medium Budget of £150
Boxing Gloves Beginners are not likely to be doing any heavy sparring (or any at all very early on) but we are going to make the assumption most clubs will use partner drills and introduce some light sparring certainly within 6-12 months which should be easily within the lifespan of a set of boxing gloves and shinguards, This means you need sparring weight boxing gloves; For a guy this is going to be generally considered to be 14 or 16oz; Many Girls use 10 or 12 oz but this does differ from club to club and may well be best off checking before you go ahead with buying them especially online. For a low budget you should look at either Blitz Firepower Gloves or Probox Club essentials Both with RRPs of around £30. The Blitz Gloves are leather and will last longer but the Probox are a nicer fit but synthetic. Both are well padded and will survive 6-12 months where you can then consider an upgrade. For the Mid Budget you can buy a much better standard and going for standard ranges of any of the major Thai brands such as Twins, Fairtex and Topking will set you back £75 ish but will last years and offer an excellent level of protection. Also Worth considering are the REVGEAR Platinum which although not pretty are an excellent glove for £59.99
Things to Note:
- A pair of quality gloves on a sale price – Fightstorepro was selling Windy Leather Gloves for £40 last month; These would have been ideal on a budget!
- FAKES on Ebay. Don’t touch them; If buying from Ebay buy from a reputable store
- Bargains from Thailand – If you can wait 12 weeks and hopefully avoid HMRC this can be a way of buying good gloves cheap but BE CAREFUL!
- There are several MMA brands which do not make good boxing gloves; Generally avoid them and leave them to making MMA gear.
Worth noting here are Sandee Gloves which are a little cheaper than most the Thai brands but have an Odd fit on the hand. We can’t work out here if this is due to design for very small people (Eg Thai’s) or just a design flaw. Our recommendation would be to make sure you have tried a set of these on before even considering them as they can be very uncomfortable with the wrong hand size.
Thai Shinguards With MMA becoming more prominent there are now three basic types of martial arts shinguards; The cotton sock variety, the MMA pull over variety and the Thai Shinguard which is much stronger and usually made of leather. Generally we would recommend the Thai Boxing leather style but if budget is an issue then this is going to be a tough call. On a budget the Cotton sock variety maybe MTG or Fairtex SPE could be okay for light training but misplaced kicks or clashes of shins in drills could get painful fast. Working on our low budget of £75 assuming your gloves have taken up £35 we need to be careful. The Pro Box Extreme shins come in at £32.99 and are very good functionally even if they are a bit ugly but for just over 30 quid you can handle a little ugly.
For the healthier Price range Fairtex Sp3, Sandee Authentic Range Shins or Top King Pro is the way forward strong functional and very well made. Notably only the Sandee of the three are actually leather. REVGEAR also make a great Defender shinguard at £59.99 which in many ways beats the Thais at their own game and will appeal to the more modern, less Thailand styled K1 and MMA Kickboxers out there. Again avoid the style over substance MMA brands.....
Gumshield - A cheap gumshield will save your teeth clashing and can be bought for a few quid; a better one will save a dental bill later in life. Spend £15 on a decent one if you can. REVGEAR, Shockdoctor, Opro all make decent ones for under that figure.
Groinguard - The options are endless but a Thai steel cup for £15-20 is a good and cheap option. The Revgear or Adidas Groin protectors will do a job for around £15 but if you can afford it get the Shock doctor as its really good and only another £10.
Handwraps - Get 5 metre with a little stretch Boon, Topking, Revgear and Fairtex all make great Wraps. MTG at around £5 are decent enough too.
Hope this advice all helps and please visit our store if you need to buy your first kit; feel free to call us office hours on 01912303030
