Protective Cup Design
Modern cups are profiled. They differ primarily in two ways: the shape of the bottom end and their volume. The Bike and Original Banana cups are pointed and relatively narrow; the Bauer, Protex, and SafeTGard cups are rounded at the bottom end and are relatively wide.

The old-style flat-profile cups that are for some reason still available in drug stores and cheap sporting goods stores are worthless. They aren’t contoured and just don’t have the necessary volume to really protect you. They are not comfortable. Your body is curved; why wear something that’s flat and uncomfortable?

The Best Way to Wear a Cup
Start with a good supporter that holds your balls snugly to your body. This way the cup can completely cover them and transmit any impact directly to your pubic bone. Eliminate anything between the cup and your balls; padding inside the cup doesn't work as well as you might think. You don’t want any of the impact to go to your balls; you want all of it to go to your pubic bone. If you like to wear compression shorts, then put your cup jock on first and put the shorts on over that. WSI, Stromgren and Cuzzins make compression shorts that have built-in pockets for a cup. You don’t have to wear a separate jock strap with those, but you can if you want to.

What Size Cup?
Protective cups come in two or three sizes: boys’, intermediate, and men’s. Cup supporter combinations usually include the appropriate size cup. Once you reach puberty, you will probably want to wear a larger intermediate or men’s cup—that’s when you go from a boy’s Large to a Men’s Small. If you have a sexual reaction when you put on your cup, don't worry about it; that's normal and healthy.

The Right Cup for You
Which cup is best for you depends on what you will be doing and whether you like to prefer to point up or down.

For sports that involve a lot of leg motion, such as hockey, football, baseball, lacrosse, and basketball, you want a cup that’s narrow so it won’t chafe your legs. The Original Banana Cup or the big pointy Bike cup is best. If you point up get a Banana or Bike cup. If you like to point down I’d recommend the Bike cup or the Bauer. The Original Banana might not have enough room; it’s shallower but wider than the Bike.

For martial arts you want a tuck-under cup like the Bike, Banana, or the specializedMartial Arts cups. (They seem to work best if you point up. Wear them over your jock and under your gi. Over your GI they look silly and all that extra material inside the cup will not protect you.)

Some hockey players like the Jofa Hockey Cup.

If you ride a motorcycle and don’t like your balls getting crushed against the fuel tank, then any of the contoured cups with a rounded bottom end will work: Bauer, Protex, or SafeTGard. A cup with a pointed bottom end, like the Banana or Bike cup, will chafe your perineum, the area behind your balls.

If you’re training big dogs, then wear whatever cup is most comfortable for you.

Don’t worry about getting the wrong cup for the wrong sport. Practically speaking, any cup can be used for any sport. (The only exceptions are boxer’s and hockey goalie cups.)

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