When you see an MMA bout on television – such as UFC cage fighting – the fighters wear minimal clothing, justs shorts for the men and shorts and a sports bra top for the women. However, this is not what you will be doing your everyday training in. Like any other athlete, you’ll need to get yourself standard training clothing, such as t-shirts, track suits, hoodies and jogging pants, all the stuff you would use for running, and generally keeping fit.

Some of the main costs you will incur will be for gloves. There are three main types of MMA gloves available, each for different uses. To develop your punching power, you will need a pair of heavy punchbag gloves. These are padded and have wrist support so you don’t damage your hands or wrists training. They will set you back around $50.

The second type is the sparring gloves. The padding on these is softer than on bag gloves; do not be tempted to use bag gloves for sparring, as the padding is higher density and it will injure your partner. Similarly, if you use sparring gloves for bag work, you will eventually find you are buying new ones very regularly (and needlessly). They can cost anything from $50-100 depending on which ones you buy.

The final type is the MMA fight gloves. These have very little padding and open fingers to allow grappling. As mentioned above, take care to use the correct gloves for the training you are doing. Fight gloves can cost between $40-100.

The only other MMA equipment you’ll need is voluntary stuff for training outside the actual competition ring. You may decide to wear padded headguards and shin pads for example. Smaller items that are used in real competitions are boxer-style gumshields and hand wraps worn under the fight gloves. And all of this martial arts equipment will probably still cost you less than you’d have paid out if you’d gone into cycling instead!