This post will help you to choose the best gloves for the sport you participate in.
Boxing Gloves
Boxing gloves are designed with one purpose in mind: punching. Specially designed boxing gloves differ from other gloves in three major ways: it is heavier, it has significantly more padding, and it is significantly bigger. Since boxing is a stand-up game and mostly involves punching the opponent on the body and head, it requires more padding.
More padding means more volume and size and they are optimally designed with minimizing injuries while dealing maximum damage. This is why you need to use boxing gloves during high-stakes games; it can make the difference between life and death.
MMA Gloves
MMA gloves are sleeker and lighter compared to boxing gloves. While they are also mostly used for punching, MMA gloves differ from boxing gloves in one major aspect. Since the M in MMA stands for “mixed”, MMA gloves are designed not only for punching but also for grappling and wrestling. MMA is a more diverse sport than boxing and it involves much more than just punching the opponent in the head.
In MMA, a range of martial arts techniques are used so maneuverability is vital in this sport. That is why boxing gloves have open palms and fingers that offer maximum wrist mobility. In a sport that involves punching, grappling, and throwing opponents, you don’t want to inhibit your moves. So if you are into MMA, make sure you choose gloves that fit and offer you maximum mobility.
Muay Thai Gloves
Muay Thai, like MMA, is a multi-disciplinary sport that incorporates techniques from various disciplines of martial arts. Muay Thai focuses on attacking with jabs, elbow strikes, kicking, stand-up striking, clinching and parrying. Injuries are much more common in Muay Thai compared to other combat sports as it utilizes eight different parts of the body.
Fist and knuckle injuries are high and can result in permanent damage. For these reasons, gloves specifically designed for Muay Thai should be used while partaking in this dangerous sport.
Other Key Differences
If you place all these three types of gloves together, the first thing that you will notice is the difference in their lengths. You’ll find that MMA gloves are the shortest, while boxing gloves are the longest of the three.
Thai gloves, for the most part, are always going to be shorter but a touch heavier as most of the padding is concentrated up top.
On the other hand, boxing gloves are much longer to offer extra wrist support to the boxer. Wrist support locks you in and supports your hands and gives you that extra protection that you need.
As compared to the other two contact sports, in boxing, you are only allowed to use your hands so that’s why they are heavily protected. The padding is evenly distributed including top to bottom, front and back and sides. As a boxer has to block an opponent’s punches as well as throw them, you need all that extra padding for your own safety.
The advantage of having shorter gloves in Muay Thai is that they become easy to manipulate as a fighter can use his hands to grab an opponent from behind the neck and use kicks. While Muay Thai fighters like to stay up and close to their opponents, boxers like to stay a little bit further away from their opponent to be able to throw punches.
For that they have even padding which allows them to throw punches more smoothly and easily. With balanced padding, the weight is also distributed so they actually feel lighter. Extra padding also allows the boxer to block the opponent’s powerful punches and take most of the brunt.
Another difference is that in boxing glove thumb is placed right behind the padding to keep your fist firm and perfectly locked in. MMA gloves have little padding because the fighter has to use his hands to maneuver and grab opponent and apply different locks and techniques.
Conclusion
The type of boxing gloves you end up buying depends on the sport you are in and your personal preference. The type of brand you choose is also extremely important because every brand offers different design and quality. So, choose wisely. RDX is famous for producing highest quality boxing, MMA and Muay Thai gloves with maximum protection and durability.
