Can You Put Boxing Gloves in the Washing Machine?
Looking after your boxing gloves is important to keep them usable for longer, but it can be hard to know what to do with sports equipment that gets sweaty after each use. Good quality boxing gloves will last a couple of years when looked after well, but usually, the first sign that you need to replace them is the strong smell that comes out of them. While you can’t put boxing gloves in the washing machine, there are some tips to keep them clean and odour-free for longer.
Why Use Boxing Gloves?
Let’s start with the basics.
You should never box without the right protective equipment, especially boxing gloves and hand wraps, as the shock that spreads through your hand and arm following the impact of your punches can damage the small bones and sensitive tissues in your hands and wrists. Wrapping your fists with hand wraps helps to keep your muscles and bones compacted and protected for unwanted or painful movements, while boxing gloves provide a cushion over your knuckles to absorb the shock of your punches.
Both hand wraps and boxing gloves will also wrap securely around your wrists to prevent sprains, strains and breaks from twisting as a result of strong punches. Due to the nature of boxing and combat sports, protecting the hands and wrists is imperative for each boxer’s safety. Boxing gloves don’t make you hit harder, in fact, most professional boxers will use thicker boxing gloves for training and lighter, 10 oz gloves for boxing matches so their opponent can feel the full force of their punches. Which boxing gloves you should wear, depends on what type of training you’re doing – the heaviest gloves are for sparring and the lighter ones are for real fights.
How to Look After Your Boxing Gloves
Very old boxing gloves will have loose threads, cracks in the leather or synthetic leather, and velcro that doesn’t hold and the boxer will start to notice they don’t feel their hands are as protected as they used to be. But if you don’t look after your gloves well, they’ll start to smell awful before they get to this stage. Here are our top three tips for giving your boxing gloves a longer life.
- Change your hand wraps daily
- Disinfect your gloves daily
- Keep your gloves stored in fresh air
Let’s look at each point in more detail.
Keep Your Hand Wraps Fresh
Since you wear hand wraps underneath your boxing gloves, they soak up most of your sweat before it touches the lining of the gloves. That’s why you should have a few pairs of hand wraps, so you can use a fresh pair every time you go boxing. If you’ve only got one or two pairs, at least wash them after every two uses, but if you’re working out hard, the sweat smell will speak for itself and you’ll want to wash them after every use.
If you don’t wash your hand wraps well, the sweat will encourage bacteria growth in your wraps which will also transfer into your boxing gloves and make them odorous as well as weaker from the bacteria.
Disinfect Your Gloves After Each Wear
Washing your hand wraps will prevent most of the bacteria from spreading and reduce the smell of sweat from your gloves, however, it’s natural for your sweat to drip inside the gloves while you train as well. You can buy disinfectant sprays or deodorising sprays to kill any bacteria on the inside of your gloves and prevent them from smelling bad. Spray them after each use to keep them fresh and make them last for longer.
If you’re not keen on using deodorising sprays or they irritate your sensitive skin, you can also try a pinch of baking soda in each glove and leave them for 24 hours to kill the bacteria. Alternatively, make a natural disinfectant with vinegar and water to spray inside the gloves. Don’t worry, they won’t smell like vinegar instead, the vinegar neutralises the smell of sweat.
Keep Your Boxing Gloves in Fresh Air
The third most important way to keep your boxing gloves clean and fresh since you can’t directly wash them, is to leave them in a place with fresh open air after each use. Anyone who’s forgotten a bag of gym clothes for more than 24 hours will know how awful your sweaty clothing can smell when contained in one place, and leaving boxing gloves covered will have the same effect. So keep them outside overnight (as long as it’s not raining or too humid) to help them air out and reduce the moisture in the gloves so they’ll stay smelling fresh.
If you live in a humid environment, or you’ve got bad weather, you can even try keeping your boxing gloves in a bag with fresh cat litter! Cat litter is designed to be very absorbent to lessen the smell and appearance of cat urine in the litter tray, so it also makes for a great substance to absorb the sweat from your boxing gloves. Incidentally, it also works well for drying humid environments and even water-damaged phones.
Add some dry herbs like mint or lavender to the bag as well to add a pleasant aroma to your boxing gloves.
Can You Wash Hand Wraps in the Washing Machine?
Since you should wash your hand wraps after each use, it would be a pain to wash them by hand each time. You can, of course, do this, however, hand wraps are perfectly okay to wash in the washing machine. Some hand wraps that have velcro closings around the wrist may snag the other clothing in the machine, so you can put them in washing bags that are used for delicate items to avoid damaging any of your clothes.
If you can, it’s best to air dry hand wraps, however, most are okay to dry in the tumble dryer on low heat to avoid melting the elastic or the velcro.
How Long Do Boxing Gloves Last?
How long your boxing gloves will last depends largely on a few different factors, including:
- The quality of the boxing glove material
- How often you use them
- What training activities you do with them
- How hard you hit
- How well you look after them
The average lifespan for a pair of boxing gloves is around 18 months, but this can be shortened to under a year if, for example, you’re using them every day to hit a heavy punching bag and don’t keep them clean or in good condition. Equally, if you only do light training once a week and follow our boxing glove cleaning best practices, you can help your boxing gloves last over 2 years.
So, How Do You Know When to Replace Your Boxing Gloves?
If your boxing gloves or hand wraps begin to smell strong, it’s definitely time for a new pair. The smell is unpleasant for you and anyone you’re training with, but it’s also a sign of plenty of bacteria living in your boxing gloves, which can cause skin and fingernail irritation as well as skin conditions.
What’s more, even if you look after your boxing gloves well and wash your hand wraps regularly, they will still need replacing after a while, so if the velcro doesn’t hold the boxing glove or hand wrap straps closed anymore, you should get a new pair before risking any injury to your hands or wrists with insufficient protection.
Boxing gloves can also wear thin after many punches, so the cushion no longer protects your knuckles from the impact of your punches; if you begin feeling pain in your knuckles or think your hands aren’t as well protected as they used to be, it’s time to invest in a new pair.
Buy Your Boxing Gloves from the Best!
Maxx Pro Boxing is committed to providing the best quality boxing equipment, including boxing gloves, for boxers all over the UK. Don’t risk injury or waste your money on poorly made equipment, buy high-quality boxing gloves from us today!
