As a martial artist I am always looking for quality providers of quality products. Inevitably martial arts gear will wear out and get ripped, torn or faded and weak. I have found a site called Ground and Pound which specializes in MMA Gear. They have some really amazing deals on some quality mixed martial arts equipment.

MMA Gloves are a big one for me. I like to find a glove that fits my hand perfectly and doesn’t have too many straps for my fingers to get caught on. Ground and Pound have an excellent range to choose from and the prices are very reasonable.

When selecting MMA gloves you should make sure they fit your hand exactly right. You do not want the glove to slide off when you make contact as this will cause you to skin your knuckles and risk a wrist injury.

Some other products that Ground and Pound specialize in include:

• mouth guards
• t-shirts
• shorts and other apparel
• traditional uniforms and gi
• hand wraps
• much more

Go and take a look at this site and bookmark it for the next time you want to make some MMA purchases. Generally you will save a lot of money shopping online with a quality provider like this one.

Kettlebells are now pretty famous for developing real world strength and power as well as being a handy muscle building tool. They are used by martial artists and sports people who need to build strength in a practical manner without sacrificing their range of motion or speed. In this post I want to look at a few basic exercises and workouts for the kettlebells.

What is a kettlebell?

In case you aren’t too sure what a kettlebell is take a look at the top image. It is basically a round cannon ball with a handle on it that allows you to throw it around and lift it in more ways than you can with a normal dumbbell. Check out some of the videos below to see how they are used.

Basic Kettlebell Exercises

There are a few kettlebell exercises that are known the world over for being effective and quite easy to learn. You should base your workouts on these core exercises.

Take a look at this video. In it we see a few basic exercises including the:

• Two arm swing
• One arm swing
• Snatch
• Squat
• Cleans
• and Switches

It is important to master these basic movements before going on to more advanced stuff or doing a full blown workout. Kettlebells can cause serious back injury if they are not done with proper form.

In this next video we can see step by step how to do a Turkish Get-Up which is a full body exercise that involves some floor work. Check it out:

In this next video we can see the basics of how to do an overhead press with the kettlebell. This is one of the most important basic movements that you can do with the kettlebell.

Kettlebell workouts

Once you have mastered the basic exercises you need to put them together in a workout. The variety of things you can do with a kettlebell is quite amazing. You can do workouts to target your whole body, improve your speed and power and really blast your fitness.

In this video we can see a pretty hard six minute kettlebell workout. As you can imagine, your whole body would be aching the next day. Take a look:

Where to buy Kettlebells?

If you want to pick up some kettlebells for your private gym you can take a look at a2z Equipment’s kettlebell page. It is a good place to get a better deal on this must-have piece of gym equipment.

Conclusion on Kettlebells

These things really are amazing for your strength and power. You can use them to boost your fitness as well as building functional muscles. Does anyone here use them?

All my life I have loved martial arts. I love the forms, techniques and above all I love the philosophy. But lately I have been thinking about one thing: does martial arts foster anger or a deeper spirituality?

Do martial arts foster anger?

People who say that martial arts fosters anger are usually able to find quite a bit of debating material. My parents used to guilt trip me about this topic all the time. Some of their arguments included:

1. The name
The very name “martial arts” implies some form of aggression or violence. Unless you are some enlightened Shaolin monk it is impossible to do violent things without anger. This does not mean that we cannot train without anger; we can. But if we ever had to fight it would involve this powerfully negative emotion.

2. The intention
People may say that martial arts is for self defense. However, I have been doing martial arts for over a decade and one thing I have learned is that “self defense” in martial arts means something completely different than “self defense” means in the legal system. Continue Reading