Common Training Injuries and How to Treat Them – Orbital Fracture

Common Training Injuries and How to Treat Them - Orbital Fracture

You’re going hard in sparring, working with someone bigger than you to get ready for an upcoming fight. Or maybe you’re having the fight, with small gloves being swung hard back and forth. Suddenly your guard drops lower than it should as you throw a punch and you catch a counter hook right on the edge of your eye socket. There’s a lot of pain and some quick swelling, you might get double vision or your eye might bulge right out. Welcome to your new orbital fracture.

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Common Training Injuries and How To Treat Them – ACL Tear

Common Training Injuries and How To Treat Them - ACL Tear

You’re sparring in the ring or cage, just moving round, and you quickly change direction to create an angle on your opponent. That’s when you feel a sudden and severe pain from your knee. Or you’re in a fight and your opponent lands a heavy leg kick against the side of your knee, and the pain sends you down to the canvas. Unfortunately you’ve just found out what it’s like to tear your ACL.

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Common Training Injuries and How to Treat Them – Boxer’s Fracture

Common Training Injuries and How to Treat Them - Boxer's Fracture

You’ve been boxing for a while, you’re really enjoying it and you feel like you know what you’re doing in the gym. Everything’s starting to flow and as your techniques getting better you start ramping up the power. One day you’re dropping bombs on that crazy heavy punch bag and bang, pain shoots through your hand and by the time you take your glove off it’s starting to swell and change colour. Say hello to your new boxer’s fracture.

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Why Are Heavy Bags Useful for Boxing, MMA, Muay Thai and other combat sports?

Why Are Heavy Bags Useful for Boxing, MMA, Muay Thai and other combat sports?

If you’ve ever found yourself in a Boxing, Kickboxing, MMA or Muay Thai gym, then there’s a strong chance you’ll have seen the imposing line of heavy bags hanging along the edge of the room. Often worn on the outside, but still standing up to the regular punishment, waiting for you to give it your hardest shot.

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First Thoughts on the Hykso Punch Trackers

First Thoughts on the Hykso Punch Trackers

Hykso (pronounced Hik-soh) is a US based company headquartered in Orange County, CA, founded by Khalil Zahar that produces tracking technology that you slip into your hand wraps and monitors your punching output during training. Hykso sent us a pair (one of the first three thousand produced) and we’ve decided to break down our review into two parts; Our first thoughts, and then a full review after a longer period of training.

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How Beneficial is an Altitude Training Mask?

How Beneficial is an Altitude Training Mask?

You see them all over the place at the moment, there’s someone in every gym with one, they’re all over instagram and you can even spot them in hollywood blockbusters like Southpaw. I’m talking about altitude training masks. That guy in the gym who looks like Bane and sounds like Darth Vader swears it’s the same as training in the Himalayas, but what’s the obsession with training at altitude? And what’re the benefits to using an altitude mask?

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Common Training Injuries and How to Treat Them – Shin Splints

Common Training Injuries and How to Treat Them - Shin Splints

Maybe you’ve just starting training, you’ve been to a few classes and decided to start running to up your cardio. Maybe you’re a fighter and you’ve ramped up your running to get ready for a fight. Either way, you’ve been running for a while and you get this pain shooting down the front of your lower leg, and it turns your run from what could have been a personal best into a painful hobble.

Welcome to the world of shin splints.

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The Difference Between Fast and Slow Twitch Muscle Fibres in Combat Sports

The Difference Between Fast and Slow Twitch Muscle Fibres in Combat Sports

I’m sure you’ve heard at various different times in your training about muscle fibres, and more specifically ‘fast twitch’ and ‘slow twitch’ muscle fibres, and the importance of training specifically to develop each type. But what the hell are the different types of muscle fibre? This article is going to run through the two different types, what they do and how to develop them and most importantly what ones you want to develop to help improve your martial arts.

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5 Body Weight Exercises To Increase Your Explosiveness

5 Body Weight Exercises To Increase Your Explosiveness

As a fighter you’re constantly looking for an edge to get you ahead of your opponent. You can drill technique constantly, but to become a complete and well rounded athlete you need to develop speed and power as well. You need to be able to go from relaxed to full power in a split second, and the way to get there is to work on becoming explosive.

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Fight Quality Kettlebell Conditioning Circuit

Fight Quality Kettlebell Conditioning Circuit

When you walk into the gym it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the huge array of equipment for you to choose from, and find yourself faced with choosing which pieces of equipment are going to be the most effective to improve your strength and conditioning. For the most part, all the different equipment is going to improve a different area – the squat rack is going to help you develop overall strength, treadmill sprints are going to help you develop the high intensity/short burst cardio you need in the ring. But what if there was a piece of gear, just one thing, that’s going to give you game changing conditioning, explosive punching power and the kind of muscle endurance that’s going to keep you punching and kicking well after the final round. Sound too good to be true?

Meet the Kettlebell.

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