Of all the products we sell, our Rupture Signature Rash Guards are by far our most popular items.  People really love them – and it’s not just grapplers.  Surfers, runners, weight lifters, and apparently softball players.   One of our staff thought it might be a good idea to write an article on what makes a perfect compression rash guard.  Incidentally, it’s a blue print on how we make our rash guards .

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Why are compression rash guards important?  They help fight the elements, combat fatigue, speed recovery and prevent injury.  To fighters and grapplers, they’re as essential as pain killers or running shoes.

However, just like many other products in the marketplace, there are good and bad rash guards.  Below is an article on what makes a great rash guard, and what you should look for when you purchase one.

Fabric and construction

- Fabric: A nylon/lycra blend is preferred over polyester. Nylon/lycra is more expensive, but definitely worth it in the long run, for both durability and yield. It also has a much nicer hand (softness and feel). Polyester wears out much faster and tends to retain odor. One advantage that polyester offers is better moisture management, but moisture wicking technology has more than equaled the playing field.

- Construction: Look for flatlock stitching on the fabric panels and triple stitching on the sleeves and bottom piece with reinforced backing. This will ensure your rash guard doesn’t fall apart at the seams after you roll a few times.

Design vs. Functionality

- What are the top 2 complaints regarding rash guards? Without a doubt, the runaway winner is that grappling rash guards ride up on your stomach, back and sometimes chest while you roll or fight. The second is badly placed seams that chafe athletes during training. Just like the badly constructed gi jacket with the seam down the middle of the back, rash guards have similar issues. I’ve recently seen a rash guard that has a unique design with seams running in the middle of the back and chest. Guess what – that will bother grapplers when they’re rolling.

The primary purpose of a great rash guard is to protect the athlete wearing it, not inhibit their performance. It is the first line of defense between skin on the athlete’s upper torso and everything else. Grappling rash guards should be tailored longer and be constructed so that rolling upwards during training is minimized or eliminated. As well, seams that meet under the arm pit, across the back or across the chest make for interesting designs and bad functional rash guards.

A 6 panel fabric design is optimal for both long and short sleeve rash guards. This ensures maximum mobility and fabric yield under wet and dry conditions. Chest and back panels should be constructed of one vertical piece. Side panels should not have seams under the arms like long-sleeve t-shirts – that is the highest friction point of any upper body garment due to arm movement – and instead should run down the length of the sleeve. The last two panels should be above the shoulder area, where the athlete encounters the least amount of friction.

Chemical Treatment

Moisture wicking technology and anti-microbial treatments are standard and should be expected in any high quality rash guard. Note: anti-microbial does not mean leave your rash guard in your gym bag for a few days then wear it the next class – you know who you are . SPF protection is great for surfers or outdoor athletes that prefer to train in rash guards. It is not as important for grapplers or MMA fighters unless they train outside quite a bit.

Design or Logo Printing

Dye sublimation is preferred whenever possible. Unlinke plastisol with a stretch based additive, sublimation is permanent and will not peel off. We’ve all seen the rash guards with logos half hanging off or peeling after a few uses. Sublimation is easy on polyester and notoriously difficult on nylon/lycra, though that is changing due to advancements in technology. In cases where sublimation is not possible, a water-based ink for synthetic materials should be used during the printing process. This does not “quite” equal sublimation, but the ink will bleed into the fabric, ensuring a logo that lasts and doesn’t peel off.

The Rupture Signature Rash Guard meets all of these criteria. Our US-made rash guards have been widely recognized as the runaway leader for quality and price by the grappling and MMA community. Make sure your next rash guard is constructed and designed to these standards.

Cheers,

Nick

P.S. Some random nag points:

Hanging neck tags do not belong on rash guards. Period. One of the most annoying things about buying a rash guard with a hanging neck tag is the constant scraping across the neck by a hard tag. T-shirt manufacturers got wise to this long ago and started printing tagless shirts.

Tight compression fit across chest, loose fit bottom. Please pick one or the other. What’s the point, really?

Rupture Clothing was recently placed under the spotlight by the Seattle MMA Examiner. Bryan Edge-Salois conducted the interview with the Rupture Clothing founders. Be sure to read all about it!! The entire interview can be found below, or by visiting this link:

http://www.examiner.com/x-5954-Seattle-Martial-Arts-Examiner~y2009m6d24-Tired-of-crappy-overpriced-MMA-gear-Check-out-these-guys

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Rupture Clothing is what happens when you get three guys together that all love mixed martial arts and hate overpriced, poor quality MMA gear and clothes.

So who are these three guys? One is a Sr. Marketing Analyst for ‘Big Oil’. One is an ex-Marketing guy from NBC. One is a senior Microsoft engineer. And all of them love MMA.

What inspired you to start Rupture Clothing? Was there an “Aha!” (or “Dammit!”) moment?

The “Dammit” moment occurred about 3 years or so ago during no-gi training.  I had just purchased a new pair of $60 grappling shorts that were made overseas.  They “ruptured” during the first day of training.  As you can imagine, I was pretty pissed.  I just figured we could make a good product here in the USA that grapplers and fighters could rely on for quality and durability and they wouldn’t have to pay an arm an a leg for.

OK, so what’s the brand name of the $60 grappling shorts that ripped on the first day? You don’t need to be shy here.

I’ll be polite and decline to respond.  I’ll say this much – I’m not the only person that thinks their products suck.

OK, we’ll give you points for taking the high road. So what makes your products better than your competitors? Is there a ‘secret sauce’ or process? A rash guard is pretty much a rash guard, right?

Well, no, not really J.  For instance, our compression-fit rash guards are slightly thicker than the flimsy rash guards made by everyone else.  The printing on our materials is bled into the fabric with water-based inks, even on the synthetic garments, so our logos stay permanently attached and don’t peel off after you roll a few times.  Also, our rash guards are cut about 2 inches longer than normal.  One of the biggest complaints grapplers have is that rash guards tend to “ride up” on their torso while rolling, and we cut our rash guards longer to solve this issue specifically.

Really, the main reason our products have taken off so well in the grappling and MMA community is our price point, attention to quality and the fact that everything we sell is manufactured, printed and embroidered in the USA under strict quality control standards.  We truly believe we have the best no-gi grappling gear in the business, and the feedback we get from our customers and partner academies such as American Top Team, Macaco Gold Team, M1 Stary Oskol, Bullshido.net and many others validates that, and motivates us to constantly deliver high-quality products to the MMA marketplace.

You’re all in different areas of the county. How do you collaborate to move the company forward?

We talk on the phone literally hours a day, from morning to night, and communicate via email, IM and text constantly.  We have weekly conference calls every Sunday.  I think being in different cities actually forces us to operate better, because it encourages constant communication and the subject matter is almost always business when we talk.  A lot of the back-and-forth good-natured banter is saved for when we meet face to face, which is about once a month or so.

What would you like to see Rupture accomplish? Do want to dethrone the bigger companies? Any other goals you would like to achieve?

We truly want to change the sport of MMA from within.  We pride ourselves in being “good for the sport”, so to speak.  We don’t portray violence, skulls, death and destruction with our designs.  I wouldn’t want a parent to be embarrassed to have their children wear our products.  We don’t employ girls in skimpy bikinis to help sell our products because we don’t think that’s what the sport is about.

Our sales pitch is pretty simple really: The best quality MMA product, at affordable prices, made in the USA.

It’s a message that’s getting a lot of traction and has helped us get where we are today.  We are one of the fastest growing brands in MMA and as long as we continue to deliver great gear at great prices to our customers, the future will take care of itself. We have some other plans as well, but all in good time.

Who are some of your favorite fighters?

First and foremost, all of the fighters we sponsor – Demian Maia, Tim Credeur, Killa-B, Tyler Toner, Luigi Mondelli, Mac Danzig, etc.  All of our guys have been great to us and really represent the sport well, and we’re very proud of them.

A few other names that come to mind are of course Fedor Emelianenko, Wanderlei Silva, BJ Penn, Georges St. Pierre and Anderson Silva.

Do you guys train actively, or are you just fans of the sport?

We all train actively.  Brett is a BJJ Blue Belt and Muay Thai instructor.  Fadi is a phenomenal BJJ Brown Belt (he’s won a bunch of titles, including NAGA, US Open and US Nationals, and placed at Mundials).  I’m a Judo Brown Belt, a BJJ Blue Belt, and a better-than-average boxer.

We love to train, and I think that’s reflected in the quality of the products we sell.  It’s interesting to note that almost every time we talk to an academy owner that wants to put our products in their pro shops or co-brand with us, we often-times identify the pain points with their current merchandise before they have a chance to tell us what they are.  They’re also pretty surprised when we start to pick their brains for training tips, as they’re used to talking to sales reps without a grappling or fighting background for the most part.

Do you sponsor any fighters? If so, who?

We sponsor a bunch of fighters. The most notable ones are Demian Maia, who’s fighing Nate Marquardt at UFC102, Tim Credeur, Ben Saunders and Tyler Toner, who’s the current Ring of Fire lightweight champion and ShootBox Champions Carnival Champion.

We also sponsor some notable grapplers – Luigi Mondelli, who just won his 5th Pan-American Gold Medal and is Fighting Gabriel Gonzaga at NAGA New England, and Jayson Patino, who just won the ADCC Trials and is going to ADCC Worlds in Barcelona.  We just added Patino Macaco to our sponsored fighters roster.

We also have a few other big guys in the sport that we’ve engaged and are currently talking to about representing our brand.  You can see all the fighters we sponsor at http://www.ruptureclothing.com/fighters.php

I readily admit that I’m not in the target demographic (18-35) for MMA ‘Lifestyle’ clothes.  But can someone tell me why all MMA gear looks like it was a designed by an ‘emo’ 14-year old with a Goth-Pirate fixation?

I really have no idea .  We stray from that as much as we can as a brand.  It cheapens the sport and reinforces the idea of MMA as human cockfighting that is still prevalent in some circles and keeps the sport from growing. Our new line actually has a completely different look than mostly everything available in MMA apparel.  Look for it on our website (http://www.ruptureclothing.com) in about a week or so.

Thanks for the interview guys.

Want to learn more?

Check out Rupture Clothing’s home page

Rupture Clothing continues its explosive growth into the world of Mixed Martial Arts by being picked as provider of choice to one of the best-known MMA camps in the world. The American Top Team academies are some of the most reputable and well know Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Submission Grappling and Mixed Martial Arts academies in the world. Rupture Clothing is proud to be named the provider of choice for American Top Team Orlando’s fight shorts.

The competition was tough, but our Rupture Signature fight shorts won by a long shot, for both quality and price. We are proud to be associated with American Top Team and look forward to producing great fightwear for their world-class camp, fighters and coaches.

Rupture Fightwear fighter Tyler Toner wins the Ring of Fire Young Guns Championship in spectactular fashion – via first round TKO against David Fuentes.

Congrats Tyler!! We will continue to support you as you continue to demolish your competition. Entire article below courtesy of MMAWeekly.com.

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At this past Saturday

Rupture Clothing is extremely proud to announce our partnership with Bullshido.net to become Bullshido

How good is Demian Maia!!! Coming off an impressive 4-win streak in the Octagon, Maia easily submits Chael Sonnen in the opening round with a beautiful triangle choke. This brings his professional record to 10-0, with his last fights all coming by way of submission.

Who will be his next opponent? Some say he deserves a title shot against Anderson Silva. Rupture Clothing is proud to support this extremely talented grappler, who has a very bright future ahead of him in Mixed Martial Arts.

Rupture Clothing fghter Cody Phillips’s kicked off his amateur career in spectacular fashion as he defeated Raymond Greenwood of Solis Martial Arts via TKO at Renegades Amateur Cagefighting.

Pictures from the fight will be up soon. We’re extremely proud of Cody and wish him well on what could be the start of a very promising MMA career!

Rupture Clothing is proud to sponsor Cody Phillips as he embarks on his Mixed Martial Arts journey. Cody is a lightweight fighter who trains at Bam Bam Martial Arts in Houston under US Heavyweight Kickboxing Champion Scott Sullivan. Cody will be making his amateur MMA debut on Friday, February 6th at the Renegades Young Guns promotion, where he will be fighting Raymond Greenwood of Solis Martial Arts.