If you know someone who is training as a fighter (for competition or fitness), it can sometimes be tough to know how to support them in meeting their goals. Short of training along side them and showing up to their matches, there’s not a whole lot you can do.
Help your fighter take a step toward the next level, by picking up something from the list below. Of course, if you are a fighter yourself, you can still take a peek. Maybe there’s something you should add to your wishlist.
We’ve pulled these products from a list of our staff favorites. All of these are either new items that we launched over the last year, or perennial fan favorites that every fighter should have in their bag.
And if you want to skip the reading and go straight to the window shopping, we put all of these products into a single 2019 Holiday Gift Guide page for you to check out. Enjoy.
1. Free-Standing Punching Bags
Bring the gym home and train without leaving your front door. A free-standing punching bag gives any fighter a convenient option for getting bag work done at home. These bags go wherever you want them and don’t require any special hardware to set up.
For folks who already have a speed bag or heavy bag hanging nearby, a free-standing bag can still be a great value. The movement and speed of a stand-up bag is far different from what a hanging bag provides. Learn to dodge and block as the bag comes zipping back at you after every hit.
Cobra Reflex Bag
This bag is one of our most popular. It will train your hands to be fast and your body to be faster.
Punch this bag and it will bounce back at you with blinding speed. Get your feet moving or put your block up if you don’t want to get hit in the face.
Tornado Bag
Like it’s cousin, the Cobra, the Tornado offers fighters a fast, responsive punching bag.
Unlike, the Cobra, however, the Tornado doesn’t seek to train pin point accuracy and blinding speed. This bag provides you with a larger striking surface, allowing you to work on more powerful strikes and good footwork.
2. Punch Mitts and Body Protector
Combine the punch mitt with a body protector and you give any coach or training partner the perfect tools to help advance a fighter’s training.
Hold the punch mitts in a variety of positions to give a fighter a number of changing targets. Then force your fighter inside to strike the body, while you stay protected from their blows inside the body protector. With these two tools together, a fighter gets one of the best training experiences available short of actually fighting.
Panther Punch Mitts
Released earlier this year, the Stealth Panther Punch Mitts have become one of our most-requested punch mitts.
These mitts look cool, provide fighters with a solid target, and require almost no break in period. And, just like our other mitts, your hands will be protected from the impact by the pad made from injected molded foam (the same technology as you will find in our IMF Tech gloves).
Gel Shock™ Super Body Protector
Ever since it’s release, the Super Body Protector has remained one of the most popular body protectors in the boxing world.
Your vital areas are covered with multiple layers of protective foam. The protector is lightweight and pre-curved, making it far more comfortable than most of the similar products out there. Three circular strike targets cover a Gel Shock™ insert to give you some additional resistance.
3. Apex Boxing Gear
With the Apex line of boxing gear, we aimed to develop an affordable but high quality line of products. We accomplished this by developing a synthetic leather material that almost as durable as real leather, but comes in at a fraction of the cost.
Once we started working with this material, we found that it could be printed with just about any color or pattern that we wanted. This allowed us to give our customers a unique line up of gloves and headgear with bold, vibrant color patterns. So now, every Apex product we put out is released in a variety of colors and patterns that we could never achieve with traditional leather.
It started off with just our Apex Bag Gloves. Then we added Apex Sparring Gloves, Apex Headgear, and Apex Hand Wraps. Pretty soon we had a full line of boxing gear and equipment including: Punch Mitts, Heavy Bags, Speed Bags, Double End Bags. And, just a few months ago, we added our Apex Boxing Shoe to the line. All of these products offer the same durability and unique designs as our original offering.
Ringside apex bag gloves. 
Ringside Apex sparring gloves. 
Ringside Apex hand wraps. 
Ringside Apex headgear. 
Ringside Apex punch mitts. 
Ringside Apex speed bag. 
Ringside Apex double end bag. 
Ringside Apex heavy bag. 
Ringside Apex boxing shoe.
If you want to get some boxing gear that can take a beating, offers an amazing array of design options, and won’t break the bank, then pick something out of our Apex line up.
4. Dedicated Sparring Gloves
When most people begin boxing training, the start off with just one pair of gloves. And that first pair of gloves is usually a pair of bag gloves.
For most training bag gloves work just fine. And while sparring with bag gloves isn’t unheard of, it’s really not the best decision.
So if you’re a boxer who’s ready to get started with sparring, or you know someone who is, do yourself (and your training partners) a favor and get a pair of dedicated Sparring Gloves.
Released this year, the Bullet Sparring Glove is a great entry sparring glove for any fighter. These affordable gloves utilize our new StrikeForce™ Synthetic Leather, IMF Tech™ injection molded foam padding, and a variety of eye-catching patterns
5. Full Set of Competition Gear
If your interest in the sport of boxing goes beyond its fitness benefits, then at some point, you will step in the ring and become… an amateur boxer.
Unfortunately, you can’t just show up to a competition in the same gear you use for training. Most sanctioned fights have specific rules about what you need to wear for a fight.
So check the rules on that upcoming tournament, and then pick up a full set of competition gear. Here’s a list of what we usually recommend for your first tournament.
- Ringside Open Face Competition Headgear – Unless the rules require something more protective, go with this open-face headgear that is certified by USA Boxing. It offers plenty of protection, won’t weigh you down, and won’t impede your field of view.
- Ringside Competition Safety Lace-up Gloves – If you’ve got someone who can lace you up, we believe that lace up gloves are the best option for competition. You can dial in the perfect fit.
- Ringside Diablo Boxing Shoe – These boxing shoes breathe as you move, but give you top-notch technical performance. They don’t look to shabby either. Look good while you keep your feet moving.
- Ringside Reversible Competition Outfit – Nothing matches the versatility of this reversible competition outfit. Whether you draw the blue corner or the red corner, you’ll always be ready. If you want look for something more personal, you can check out our full selection of competition outfits as well.
- Ringside No Foul Groin Protector – Not all tournaments require a groin protector, but many will strongly recommend that you have one. The basic cup is fine, but the full no-foul protector will make sure that you stay safe down there.
6. Trusty Jump Rope
The jump rope is a fundamental piece of boxing training equipment. It’s not only a great tool for building up your conditioning and improving footwork, it’s also super portable. You can take it with you wherever you travel and always have it handy for a quick workout.
We love the basic speed rope. The ball bearings in the handle help you get this rope spinning as fast as you can handle. It’s fairly lightweight, so it won’t wear you out beyond your rope routine.
Then there’s the traditional leather jump rope. This rope is super durable. If you pick it up, you’ll be using it forever. It also offers a bit more resistance than you basic speed rope, so it can actually make your cardio jump roping mor effective.
7. Resistance Bands
Resistance bands are a hot item in the training world right now. They can be used in a variety of ways to enhance your strength training and conditioning. Like the jump rope, resistance bands are also highly portable, making them a great addition to the training fighter’s kit.
Full length body bands can be used to perform a lot of the same movements as a weight lifting program. You can also add them to your existing routines to increase their difficulty.
Resistance tubes, like body bands, are a great option for mobile weight training. These tube products also come with a number of attachments that let you engage in a number of strength training movements.
8. Foam Roller
There’s nothing quite like a foam roller to improve recovery and reduce muscle tightness after a workout.
If you want to increase the effectiveness of your recovery work, you should consider our new vibrating foam roller. It gives you the same ability to work out knots as a traditional roller, but adds vibrations (at three different levels) to help deepen the therapeutic effect.
9. Slam Ball
Exercising with a slam ball is a great full body conditioning routine, and will help to really develop your core.
Slam balls are great conditioning tools because you can do many of the same conditioning exercises that you might do with a medicine ball (like Russian Twists), or wall ball, but you can also do the intense slamming exercises that the slam ball was built to perform.
The fitness first slam ball comes in a variety of different weights depending on your needs. It also has a textured surface to give you a lot of traction when it comes to manipulating the ball.
10. Ringside T-Shirt or Hoodie
Finally, if you don’t think any of these items are quite right, or you just don’t think you can afford them right now, you can always opt for your basic Ringside t-shirts and hoodies.
Right now, our favorite design is the one that incorporates that classic victory pose that calls to mind the Rocky statue in Philadelphia. We’ve got this design in both a t-shirt and hoodie.