Are Boxing Gloves and Muay Thai Gloves the Same?

By Kasim Javed Punchbags

Gloves were made compulsory in boxing, Muay Thai and other combat sports for the safety of the competitors, so choosing the right gloves for your sport is crucial for your safety and your optimum performance. While boxing gloves and Muay Thai gloves may look the same to an untrained eye, there are subtle differences that make each ideal for their sport and may cause unnecessary risk if used in a different combat sport than their intended purpose.

Boxing gloves and Muay Thai gloves are not the same, but when starting in either sport, it is possible to use one instead of the other. But as you advance with your technique and power, you should get the right gloves for boxing or Muay Thai for your safety and best performance.

So, what’s the difference between the two? Let’s take a look.

Differences Between Boxing Gloves and Muay Thai Gloves

Both boxing gloves and Muay Thai gloves are padded to protect the hands when striking. However, there are differences between:

where the padding is located
the shape of the gloves
the position of the thumbs
the size of the wrist strap

Muay Thai and boxing both use predominantly punching techniques, however, in Muay Thai, fighters also use their elbows, knees and feet to fight, meaning they also need to protect themselves differently.

Boxing gloves have most of the padding over the knuckles as boxers will be only punching each other and their equipment. This is also the reason that boxing gloves are curved, with the thumbs tucked in, so boxers can make a fist more easily and keep their thumbs out of the way to prevent twisting or other damage.

In Muay Thai, fighters are attacked by kicks, knees and elbows too, so they need to put their hands out to catch and push away strikes with other parts of their hand, which therefore also need to be padded. Muay Thai fighters also need their thumb to be in a different position to boxers, as they need more flexibility in their hands to grab their opponent and defend against strikes for all parts of the body.

Since Muay Thai fighters also strike with their fists, they require some wrist support to prevent any injuries by striking and twisting their wrists unnaturally. However, due to the fighting style of Muay Thai, they need to be more flexible than boxers, who will have a heftier punch, so boxers will have a longer wrist strap on their boxing gloves than on Muay Thai gloves.

Can You Do Both Muay Thai and Boxing?

Muay Thai and Boxing offer wonderful physical benefits for those taking part as both include a great deal of cardiovascular exercise as well as strength training, not to mention the mental benefits of exercise and utilising negative energy to punch the heavy bags. What’s more, if you’re interested in turning to mixed martial arts, or simply want more confidence in your self-defense abilities, learning both boxing and Muay Thai skills can be of great benefit. Boxing comprises many different punching techniques as well as working on footwork and the fighting stance, while Muay Thai teaches both punching techniques and using other parts of your body to strike.

Even though both boxing and Muay Thai are combat sports and both sets of gloves are padded, if you are taking either sport seriously, it’s recommended to get the appropriate gloves for each sport. Wearing boxing gloves for Muay Thai will not enable you to fight as well, while wearing Muay Thai gloves for boxing will leave your knuckles, thumbs and wrists at a higher risk of injury.

How to Choose Boxing Gloves

Both boxing gloves and Muay Thai gloves are sized according to their weight in ounces (oz), which refers to the amount of padding within the glove. But you need to choose the right boxing or Muay Thai gloves for your activity as the padding will be distributed differently across each glove despite weighing the same.

Men choosing boxing gloves and women choosing boxing gloves can follow the same criteria as the weight of the boxing gloves necessary for training aligns with the weight of the individual who will wear them.

The following size guide is useful for choosing which boxing gloves to buy for training:

6 – 8 oz gloves for people under 45 kg
10 – 12 oz gloves for people between 46 – 68 kg
14 oz gloves for people between 69 – 80 kg
16 – 18 oz gloves for people over 80 kg

When choosing boxing gloves for sparring or real fights, however, you’ll need to choose different size boxing gloves for maximum protection and optimum performance.

Why Having Several Boxing Gloves is Important

If you’re boxing regularly, you’ll need at least three pairs of boxing gloves as they all have different levels of padding according to what you’ll be doing.

Sparring gloves have the most padding to protect your sparring partner from the full force of your punches. This type of training replicates a real fight so you want to use your full abilities without fearing injuring your partner, so the extra padding will help soften each blow.

Training gloves will have an average amount of padding so you can train comfortably without risking injury and without needing to protect the equipment.

Boxing gloves used in real fights are the thinnest and lightest gloves you’ll have. While you want to protect your sparring partner, you want to hurt your opponent to achieve victory, ideally by knockout. Having thin gloves will hurt your knuckles more than using training gloves, but it’s guaranteed to have a higher impact on your opponent too.

As well as for different training purposes, you’ll also want to have a few pairs of training gloves to make sure you can clean one pair of gloves while wearing the other when training.

Can You Hit Pads Without Wraps?

Whatever part of your fight training you’re doing, you should wear hand wraps underneath your boxing gloves and your Muay Thai gloves. Hand wraps are essential to keep the small bones in your hand close together to prevent breaking or twisting parts of your hands in an unnatural way causing injury.

This may seem more essential in real boxing matches, but when training you should also be hitting the punching bag or focus pads with as much power and accuracy as possible to improve your boxing performance. The extra padding in the gloves is there to protect your knuckles, but the hand wraps are essential to support your hands and wrists.

Maintaining Your Boxing Gloves

Boxing gloves and Muay Thai gloves are made from the same materials, either real leather in more expensive gloves, or synthetic leather such as vinyl or PU in more affordable options. This means that boxing gloves and Muay Thai gloves can be maintained in the same way.

You need to keep your gloves clean so that they maintain sufficient padding in the glove to protect your hands through their lifespan as well as preventing them from growing bacteria and beginning to smell bad. Keeping boxing gloves clean unfortunately isn’t as simple as throwing them in the washing machine, you need to wash your gloves by hand to ensure the padding remains intact and the bacteria is efficiently removed from the inside of the glove.

To keep your boxing gloves clean, you should follow the following steps each time you use your gloves:

Wash your hands before use
Wear clean hand wraps before each use
Spray disinfectant on the inside of the gloves after each use
Open the gloves as wide as possible to allow maximum airflow
Leave them for at least 24 hours in a warm and dry location with good air circulation
Gently rub leather conditioner or essential oils into the outer material to keep it flexible
Alternate your gloves each time you train

By following these steps, you’ll ensure your boxing and Muay Thai gloves keep your hands protected for as long as possible.

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