Boxing gloves can be made from a wide range of materials, depending on the company, price of materials and quality of the gloves, so choosing the right pair for you can be tricky. As well as thinking about your budget and the durability of the gloves, you’ve got to choose the right weight and decide if you prefer lace-up gloves or velcro ones – also known as hook and loop gloves.
So what are boxing gloves made of and how do you choose the right pair for you? Let’s take a closer look.
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Are Boxing Gloves Made of Real Leather?
Boxing gloves can be made of various materials, although the outer layer, or skin, always falls into two categories:
- Real leather
- Synthetic leather
Real leather tends to be more durable than synthetic leather so is preferred by professional boxers, and is usually made from either tanned cowhide or goatskin as they are both durable and flexible materials. Synthetic leather is usually either made from vinyl or polyurethane leather and is a cheaper alternative to real leather and is slightly less durable. Sometimes there is another layer of leather or synthetic leather lining the boxing glove, or a thin layer of nylon taffeta.
Most boxing gloves have four layers to provide sufficient padding to protect the user as well as an effective skin to keep the boxing gloves strong. These four layers are varying densities of synthetic sponge foam such as polyurethane or EVA foam. The innermost layer is usually the most dense as this provides sufficient padding for protection as well as makes it easier to make heavy boxing gloves without having to make them too big or thick.
What’s PU in Boxing Gloves?
When choosing boxing gloves, it’s easy to become confused with the terminology and not know what material is what. Some companies talk about genuine leather versus PU; genuine leather and real leather are the same, and PU stands for polyurethane, the synthetic material that can be made dense for the padding, or in a thin layer to replicate the qualities of leather.
Polyurethane (PU) boxing gloves are the most cost-effective as real leather can be very expensive, and some PU gloves can be made in very high quality. However, both real leather and synthetic leather gloves need to be properly cared for to have a longer life.
Is Real Leather Better than Artificial Leather for Boxing Gloves?
Whether real leather or synthetic leather boxing gloves are better for you depends largely on your budget and your boxing abilities. Heavyweights and advanced boxers usually prefer real leather gloves as they are more durable, especially for very hefty punches. However, as real leather boxing gloves can be unreasonably expensive, they’re not ideal for beginners or boxers in lighter weight classes.
It’s easy to say that synthetic leather boxing gloves are not as high quality as real leather, however, with the advancements in technology, synthetic leather is improving greatly, and with the proper care, they can last a long time.
The typical lifespan of leather boxing gloves is around 18 months to 2 years, while synthetic leather gloves last 1 year to 18 months on average. Both types of gloves need proper care for them to remain in suitable condition for use, however.
The main downside of synthetic leather is that it can cause your hands to produce more sweat than real leather which makes the gloves require more attention than real leather to avoid your boxing gloves starting to smell. However, real leather gloves can dry and crack more easily than synthetic leather, so they also require the appropriate care to keep the leather durable and flexible.
How Do You Keep Boxing Gloves in Good Condition?
The worst thing you can do with your boxing gloves is regularly leave them in a dark sweaty gym bag where bacteria can thrive. Fortunately, there are also a few best practices to keep your boxing gloves clean and ensure they last their intended length of time since you can’t put them in the washing machine directly.
Firstly, you should disinfect your boxing gloves after each use to prevent bacteria from growing within the dark damp space of your gloves, which causes the materials to weaken. To clean the inside of the boxing gloves, simply open them as wide as possible and spray a homemade or shop-bought disinfectant covering the entire inside of the glove and leave them to air-dry in a warm, dry place, out of direct sunlight.
This dries any remaining moisture in the glove as well as removing any smell from the glove. If your only place to dry your gloves is in sunlight, don’t leave them there for more than 20 to 30 minutes depending on the time of day, as the heat can dry out the leather or synthetic leather and cause it to crack.
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Over time, the skin of the glove can become dry naturally, so you should moisturise the outside of the gloves gently with a specialist leather conditioner, or essential oils to rehydrate the leather, helping it to become more flexible again. Using essential oils like lemon or geranium can also give the boxing glove a pleasant scent and combat any unpleasant odours.
Is a Lace Wrist Strap Better than Velcro?
When deciding on which boxing gloves to buy, you’ll also be faced with the question of lace-up gloves or velcro, and while lace-up gloves may look more professional, there’s no right answer to which is best. Velcro wrist straps are much more practical and you can easily put them on yourself, while trying to tie laces with a boxing glove on one hand is pretty much impossible. So if you’re training alone in your home gym, velcro boxing gloves are for you.
However, some people argue that velcro wrist straps are worse quality because they’re usually cheaper, and can sometimes snag if the velcro strap is too long. This may be true for some cheap boxing gloves, but you can still buy excellent, high-quality boxing gloves with velcro wrist straps that are made to be the perfect length to close around your wrist, such as these high-quality, affordable boxing gloves from Maxx Pro Boxing.
What Boxing Gloves Are for What Purpose?
There is a range of different boxing gloves for different purposes and different people, which can make it hard to know what to look for when buying boxing gloves, but choosing the right size boxing gloves for you is easier than it may seem.
Boxing gloves are unisex so men wondering what size boxing gloves to buy can follow the same criteria as women looking for the right size boxing gloves; the key factors are the weight of the boxer and the activities they’ll be doing.
For training gloves i.e. those to be used when punching heavy bags or focus pads, you can choose:
- 6 – 8 oz gloves if you’re under 45 kg
- 10 – 12 oz gloves if you’re 46 – 68 kg
- 14 oz gloves if you’re 69 – 80 kg
- 16 – 18 oz gloves if you’re over 80 kg
That’s because training gloves are the most average pair you’ll need. If you’re sparring, you’ll require thicker, heavier gloves with more padding to protect your training partner from harm. Whereas if you’re participating in real fights, you’ll need thinner, lighter boxing gloves so your opponent can feel the full force of your punch and you can increase your chances of achieving a knockout.
Britain’s Best Boxing Gloves – Maxx Pro Boxing
At Maxx Pro Boxing we pride ourselves on making high-quality boxing gloves for beginners and professional boxers alike, at an affordable price, so everyone has the chance to get involved in the great sport of boxing. Browse our range of elite boxing gloves today, or have a look at our punching bags, so you can train like a pro from the comfort of your own home.
Source: https://t-tees.com
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