Issue 107

November 2013

The essential gear used by today's athletes. The former Invicta FC atomweight champ tells us why she’d love to have a custom-made head guard.

CLETO REYES BOXING GLOVES

“Out of all the gloves I’ve tried I really think these ones fit my hands the best because my hands are pretty small. I like the way the padding is distributed inside them because other gloves can be quite bulky, sort of like little pillows. These ones are a little more sleek. I only wear Cleto gloves in the gym and I wear 12oz, 10oz and 8oz gloves. I find that if you wear big bulky gloves and then fight in small MMA gloves your timing is going to be a little off. So when I’m doing my workouts for timing and speed I go for the lowest weight gloves to get as close as I possibly can to a real-time scenario.”

TWINS OPEN FACE HEADGEAR

“I’m not sure why but I get a little bit claustrophobic in headgear. I don’t really wear any headgear when we’re doing MMA sparring, but we’re pretty controlled when we’re doing it so it’s never really an issue. However, when I do boxing sparring I do wear my Twins open face headgear which I think is the best type for me. I think headgear in general is pretty bulky and can kill my peripheral vision. I’m pretty small so headgear looks big and bulky on me anyway. Hopefully someone can make me a custom-one one day; that would be nice (laughs).”

BUILT TO FIGHT NEOPRENE SHIN GUARDS

“When I’m doing stand-up sparring I wear shin guards, but when I’m working on MMA and grappling I kind of lay off of them because I like to be able to move and do submissions, and they kind of get in the way. I will say that the shin guards I wear are pretty lightweight and don’t move everywhere which is always nice as I don’t want to have to keep adjusting them.”

SHOYOROLL GI

“I wear a gi because I feel that if you’re not training in one you miss out on a lot of basics. When you train no-gi and then transition to wearing the gi it’s a little bit difficult. You miss out on learning a bunch of different techniques and control. You learn how to get out of positions you can get out of in a gi that you can’t without a gi; however, it is a different pace so it’s important that before an MMA fight you’re not working on the gi; but I do like training in the gi during my off-time. I also love training no-gi as that resembles an actual fight.”

ASICS WRESTLING BAG

“It’s basically like a rucksack but it has a mesh piece on the outside that allows my clothes a chance to breathe so they don’t smell up the entire bag (laughs). I’ve had it for as long as I’ve been training and it’s probably the best bag I’ve owned for MMA.”

ASICS WRESTLING BOOTS

“I only wear my Asics wrestling boots when I’m doing straight wrestling practice, but they’re really good. They’ve got great grip and are pretty comfortable to wear, and that always makes training so much easier I think.”