Full Contact

[RCastillo]

If going all out in a sparring session, what type gloves would be the safest to use, and would head gear still be advisable to use?

Thanks:asian:

[tarabos]

the safest gloves? probably a pair of 16oz boxing gloves preferably from Ringside. but a glove will really only protect your hand, not your opponents head. I just use regular old boxing headgear from fairtex. Ringside gets their headgear from http://www.fightgear.com

so....

http://www.fairtex.com - my favorite

http://www.ringside.com - my second favorite

now if you still want some gripping ability in your gloves, you're going to have to go with something that has fingers. i have a pair of kempo/kenpo/jkd gloves, whatever you want to call them, that are pretty decent. they don't offer as much protection though.

keep in mind as well that a heavier glove WILL weigh your hands down after a couple rounds, but you should benefit from that as well with some increased hand speed.

foot/shin/instep protection is a different story. there's a wide variety of protection there. i have a pair of ringside shin/instep guards and they are decent. they tend to move around a lot though if you wack someone with a leg kick. i plan to try out the fairtex shin/instep guards soon as well. when i started sparring i used to wear the foam-dipped footwear, but after slipping and falling on my arse enough times because of those POS's...i got rid of them. plus it's not nice to kick someone with your shin without protection on.:D

[jfarnsworth]

I agree that ringside would be the way to go. I trained with ringside and never had any problems with any of the equipment.