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If you ask about that one spot you want to be off-limits and should not be hit heavily, most men will answer the groin without a second thought. The unearthing, nerve-wracking pain you feel, the pain so strong to literally shut off your senses, is a nightmare. If hit right, even the strongest of men will collapse.
As a child, I think most of us have encountered a hit to the groin from friends, be it playfully or otherwise. Thankfully, we have outgrown those times. However, for combat athletes, the possibility is still there. Sure, we have learned to manage pains and have much higher endurance and fitness, but we are still made of flesh and blood.
Luckily, we have protective gear! Use the best BJJ cups on the groin to save your precious organ from any injuries or pain!
Diamond MMA - Compression Shorts with Built-in Jock Strap & Athletic Cup System
The testicles and the penis are, after all, an organ. The reproductive organ may be the only organ that resides outside of the body and is wide open without protection. There is no external bone structure or even muscles that protect the testicles. So, what happens when they are hit horrendously? Well, the first thing you experience is pain, the sense numbing pain! Quickly followed by nausea and tears, you will generally bend and collapse to try and live through it. You might think you have the mental readiness to endure the pain. Still, actually, at the same time, your body is also adapting to the pain and healing the injury.
Upon impact, your brain quickly releases endorphins to control the pain. The endorphin also reduces the brain’s oxygen level. Lower oxygen means you will get a headache, and with that, feel nauseous. The tears come because the groin signals’ intense pain, ‘ which activates another neuron, the sympathetic ganglia, to console. With everything going haywire in the brain, the organ closest to it, the ear also gets confused. The ear fluid level shifts and that causes dizziness.
Actually, the first thing we do, laying down, is the right approach to control the pain. Before everything else, controlling the pain is always the first natural instinct, and for such cases, the right one. Hoping that only the soft sensitive tissues are hurt, leaving the testicles and fertility intact, do the following after feeling the pain.
There are, in fact, severe complications like testicular torsion and testicular rupture. Torsion means the organ parts getting twisted with one another, while rupture is them getting crushed.
Well, this has a straightforward answer. If you are new to the sport (also check out our beginner BJJ Gi review), or as we call it, a white belt, you might not know this yet. Still, wearing cups in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu sanctioned tournaments like IBJJF, NABJJF, etc., are illegal. That is, you can’t have extra gears or concrete parts in those parts while you are attacking your opponent.
There are actually good reasons for it. For starters, Jiu-jitsu is considered a slow-moving, gentle sport. Like cricket, football, or MMA, there is less chance of someone or something coming at your groin at incredible speed. BJJ is also a form of self-defense, and it is hoped that the fighter will be able to apply the training in real-life scenarios. Do you walk around in real life wearing a cup?
Since BJJ is not a high contact sport, there are fewer chances of attacking your scrotum than the plastic cup harms the opponent. There are many moves where you will need to put pressure by keeping the opponent between your legs. Those pieces of plastic will do more harm to the opponent than you might want. You may put them in arm injury, elbow, or even spinal column.
Besides this, having a hard plastic cup in between the legs might feel awkward. In Jiu-Jitsu, you may need to shape your body differently and bend it in various ways to fit it onto your opponent or break free from them. Having hard plastic might not allow you to be that flexible. Instead, the plastic might pinch your skin and put you out for a second or two. That second or two is enough for the opponent to take advantage and defeat you.
Wearing cups is still the right choice when you are rolling. It should be mandatory if you are rolling hard (If you don’t know, rolling is like sparring, you do with another partner in a dojo). In BJJ, the term rolling is used to indicate training, simulating scenarios with another person to try out and perfect your moves. You can roll either lightly or hard. Lightly means you ask the training partner to approach slowly, giving you time to think and execute your moves.
In contrast, hard rolling means your partner will be fully resisting and will fight just like in a tournament. Compared to tournaments, accidental injury to the scrotum is much more common in rolling. So, wearing a cup is the right choice. Also, some competitions like NAGA allow the participants to wear protective cups.
No matter the controversies around the use of BJJ cups, in the past you didn’t even have the option to choose one. There weren’t any suitable quality cups made for close contact sports like BJJ or MMA. There were only a handful of jockstraps on the market. Truth be told, they were very uncomfortable and even went out of place to poke and hurt the sensitive places. You can’t really blame the manufacturers for it, though.
A few years ago, using such cups was considered a weak move and an untold frowned upon rule. BJJ practitioners really didn’t give much importance to it. However, time has changed. Not everyone wants to be a competitive BJJ athlete. Instead, many of us actually learn the sport for fun, contentment, and self-defense. While doing so, we do not even imagine having such horrific injuries and experiences.
Quickly enough, Shock Doctor has become a household name. They are known for their great protective gear and coming up with innovative products for BJJ. So, it is no surprise that they make the best BJJ cups.
This is an excellent item for grapplers since it offers both the advantages of a cup and compression shorts immediately. Above all else, the shorts are manufactured, produced using a moisture-wicking material that keeps you dry and directs temperature. The shorts have an underlying pocket that houses a high-grade cup. The pocket guarantees the cup is in an ideal anatomical position, something that ordinary strap-on cups seldom ensure. Shock Doctor’s cup is a Bio-Flex vented cup giving maximal wind stream. Likewise, these shorts have a flatlock crease that keeps everything set up, and the pocket is extra strengthened.
It is the best cup for BJJ for somebody who needs an incredible modern design. The cup is preeminent with twofold layer safeguards, and it is sensibly priced.
The athletic supporter keeps the cup set. This is an extraordinary bit of preparing gear for a long training session. It is likewise comfortable and fits perfectly.
You should realize this model doesn’t offer the best security to your balls’ parallel sides. It is made of synthetic material, and you can pick between two sizes only. Nonetheless, it is useful for preparing.
For the price, you can have some amazingly excellent groin assurance that doesn’t just secure you well yet is agreeable for long practice sessions.
The Jockstrap works really hard to hold the cup in position, yet we would prescribe some compression shorts to go over it to help keep everything in place. Venum makes a fantastic minimal effort in training products, and this item is no exemption. On the off chance that you are searching for an ordinary, however all-around cup at a reasonable cost, then I propose trying this out.
It has a 4-stage jock system and a string that allows transitions to more stable. Overall, it is BJJ and MMA’s best cup.
Diamond MMA Cup Groin Protector is a military spandex bulletproof cup. You can choose from 8 different sizes. It’s light and cool, and when you’re practicing, you won’t even feel it.
Diamond MMA cup reviews are overall good at many places, and many others have similar experiences. Although it’s on the pricier side, it is excellent.
McDavid supplies mixed martial artists with a vast amount of protective equipment. The cup they produce is definitely one of the better MMA cups. This cup will withstand and keep you safe and ready to fight with some solid blows. The Compression shorts can be modified through a variety of straps that hold the cup in place.
Although this is not as good as the Diamond cup, this product definitely does the job when it comes to MMA and BJJ. The cup is nice and reliable, and the brace’s design is one of the best on the market.
Another brand that regularly crafts top-notch protective gear to practice grappling with ease. When it comes to such equipment, RDX is a fantastic company that makes anything, be it shorts or protective cups. A strapped style cup that is quick and does the work is this Groin Protector from RDX. Great without too much fuss for individuals looking for total security.
Featuring a traditional jockstrap, the cup is very convenient to use for most. RDX made the protector with steel! While you won’t see others doing it, rest assured, the cup is highly powerful. Don’t worry, a specially painted sheet lines the interior to make sure that the steel doesn’t poke your sensitive groin regions.
The groin protector is both lightweight and extremely protective due to its Polypropylene structure. There is also a certain degree of ‘give’ to this material, which basically means that it can subtly bend. In terms of convenience, this is incredibly useful. It tends to keep the cup from becoming stiff and scratching into the flesh.
What’s more, Meister has added rubberized edges to add a degree of comfort. This, in turn, stops any discomfort or unnecessary chaffing from causing the Groin Protector.
Another factor worth noting is that it is sized to allow this cup to fit into both jock straps and cup pockets for shorts.
The Diamond Sporting Shield has been used by professional players like football, MMA, and every other athlete in contact sports. The protector is made using such high tech that it can absorb even the hardest hit to the scrotum. Do not worry if you want to practice leg locks or knee-cut passes, Diamond Athletic Cup protector will allow you to do that with ease and security. With a squishy edge featuring the design, the protector cup minimizes friction and avoids scratching. Despite wrestling at a fast pace, the cup remains safely in position. The Diamond cup can survive a 20-pound sledgehammer attack as far as defense goes, so you’re more than healthy and safe while rolling for BJJ. Diamond MMA Athletic Cup has been made with a core of polycarbonate, a material used to make bulletproof vests.
There are basically two types of cups fit for your BJJ sessions. One is the improved strapped based one, while the other is made to fit right in place within the compression shorts. In the strap based one, the cup is tied to your waist or the legs through an elastic. The elastic has loops so that you can wear it through your legs. The cup hangs from the elastic in front of your genitalia. The compression shorts, on the other hand, are just short pants that the athletes wear. These shorts remain attached to the body and in position while allowing the wearer to move freely in any acrobatic way they want. Putting cups within the short has become a popular option, and now, the manufacturer produces and ships them both at the same time to fit perfectly. While buying, there is not a clear winner; instead, comfort is different for people. You’ll have to try and decide.
The material defines how much pressure and force the cups can take without exerting it to the wearer or breaking. Modern cups can take as much as 4 tons of pressure! That is, the cup won’t break even if you hit it with a sledgehammer. Thanks to military-grade materials like spandex, polycarbonate, and thermopolymer. You should consider buying such materials if you expect such a frequent and forceful attack on the groin region. If you plan to use cups only for BJJ, then a more straightforward synthetic cup is enough.
You bet not everyone has the same size of genitalia. So, when it comes to the cup, would a single size suffice for all? Not really. The cup should be such that it shouldn’t feel tight against your testicles, nor shouldn’t it be too loose to not even hold them in place. Thankfully, almost all significant producers offer a variety of sizes. Most offer at least two to three, while some offer as many as 8 sizes!
Just like the different materials, there are other price points to these cups. Better quality means more prices. You should really understand what quality you are looking for and then set your budget according to the cost to quality ratio. If you have long term plans, why not go for the best of quality?
Remember how there were complaints of severe injuries, especially after wearing a cup? It was because the athletes wore it wrong. After wearing it, move around, lie down and move on the ground to check if the cup remains in place. Also, do not forget, the cup should be light and not give you an extra burden.
Tissues in the groin region are susceptible, and you do not want your cup to poke the genitalia or pinch it. There is also the risk of sideway kick or punch while in combat. So, while buying, make sure the cup is broad enough to protect all around from hurts.
How Long Do Groin Protectors Last?
This depends on a few things: the groin protector’s consistency, how much you practice, and the amount of training you do. That said, the chances are that the cup will last for years, as it is unlikely that you will be hit regularly in that region.
Will we wash them?
Yes, it is possible to wash most MMA groin protectors and you definitely should wash them, as you would any clothes. Only make sure that when the cup arrives, you inspect the packaging. Hand wash the cup in hot/hot water if you can’t see any details on cleaning.
Do you need more than one?
No, odds are, you’re not going to require more than a cup. If you’re playing, the only time that I would consider getting more than one is. It might be a smart idea to have a tournament cup and a cup exclusively for preparation.
That being said, I would definitely be having double the same model cup. This way, the cup will not feel any different from usual when you’re competing and will not distract you.
How do I wear a cup?
In your compression pants/ shorts, you can either bring the cup through a slit, or you can get a jockstrap to put the cup in. Personally, I prefer to use the form of compression briefs, but it’s merely down to choice.
Using protective cups in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a hot topic itself. People have different opinions about them, and looking at the competitions, we see no way of changing the rules. However, for regular people like us, the protection of our parts is up to us. You just need to find out which guard gives you the most comfort. Read through these best BJJ cups, and find it!
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I'm Timmy and I'm the chief-editor and co-founder of Jiu-Jitsu Street. You'll usually find me on the mats and also cross-training Muay Thai. Besides martial arts I'm also into functional fitness and all things health. Jiu-Jitsu Street was created to provide useful information for BJJ beginners and seasoned practitioners alike to help you on your journey and love for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Oss!
Jiu-Jitsu Street is a community of fun loving and hard rolling BJJ enthusiasts. Born out of our passion for the gentle art, we have decided to create this blog and help you on your journey. Let’s grow and learn together on this never-ending journey. Oss!
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