How Do You Clean Boxing Gloves
Boxing gloves are the most important piece of equipment you need if you’re going to start boxing or taking part in boxing fitness classes, but many people don’t realise the importance of cleaning your boxing gloves. While you shouldn’t be hitting butchered animals like you’re Rocky Balboa, so you won’t need to bleach the outside of your gloves, your boxing gloves will still get dirty from the inside from your sweat.
Fortunately, you can easily keep your boxing gloves clean with just a few tricks.
Why Do You Need to Clean Boxing Gloves?
There are a few reasons you need to keep your boxing gloves clean, namely:
- To prevent them from smelling bad
- To prevent bacteria growth
- To keep your boxing gloves in good condition for longer
When we wear boxing gloves, our hands are well protected from the impact of our punches, but that means that there’s no room for air to pass through the glove to let our hands breathe. This means that our hands sweat a lot within the gloves, and the sweat has nowhere to go but drip into the gloves. While sweat itself does not naturally smell or contain bacteria, it mixes with the bacteria on our skin, washing the bacteria off and causing the sweat to leave a foul odour on the materials it touches.
This bacteria from our sweat collects in the boxing gloves, causing a bad smell, as well as allowing the bacteria to grow, as bacteria thrive in warm, dark and damp conditions. This bacteria buildup can then slowly eat away at the fabric of the boxing gloves, causing cracks and holes to form, so the gloves wear out quickly. Keeping your boxing gloves clean will reduce the bacteria, and the odour and help you keep hold of your boxing gloves for as long as possible.
Can You Put Boxing Gloves in the Washing Machine?
You would be forgiven for thinking, well surely the best way to keep boxing gloves clean is by putting them in the washing machine, but this is simply not the case. Most washing machine cycles are too hot and vigorous for boxing gloves; if you put boxing gloves in the washing machine, they would wear down much more quickly and the velcro strap on your wrist could melt and stop functioning.
Moreover, boxing gloves are sized by weight in oz, which is measured by the amount of material padding in the glove itself. The thicker the glove, the more cushion, which is why pro boxers use heavy boxing gloves to train, and lighter gloves for real matches. Soaking this padding in water for long periods of time can affect the distribution of material and cause the protective cushion to stop protecting your fists properly.
Fortunately, you can easily keep your boxing gloves clean in other ways to help them last longer.
Keeping Boxing Gloves Clean
By following these three easy steps, you can keep your boxing gloves cleaner for longer, so you can use them for their full intended life.
Change Your Hand Wraps
Hand wraps are another essential piece of boxing equipment, whether you’re a beginner boxer with your first pair of boxing gloves or a seasoned professional. Hand wraps add an extra layer of protection to your hands by keeping the small bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments close together to prevent anything from moving out of place and causing strains, sprains or breaks.
But hand wraps can also help stop your boxing gloves from getting too dirty or smelly. They’re a 4-metre-long piece of cloth that wraps around your hand and wrist, so it collects the vast majority of your sweat and bacteria before dripping into your boxing gloves. By washing your hands well before you put your hand wraps on, and changing your hand wraps for a fresh pair for each training session, you can prevent your boxing gloves from becoming sweaty or bacteria-laden.
You can easily wash your hand wraps in the washing machine, so you can have a clean pair ready for each training session.
Air Your Boxing Gloves
One of the other best practices for keeping your boxing gloves clean is to let them air out in a sunny place with good air circulation. This helps kill the bacteria by drying out your gloves and preventing the bacteria from spreading, as well as reducing the smell.
You should have a few pairs of boxing gloves for each aspect of boxing training you do, but you should also have a couple of pairs of your average-size gloves to make sure each pair can fully air out after each training session, especially if you train more than five times per week.
For example, a 70 kg man should have 12 or 14 oz boxing gloves for training such as hitting punching bags, a 16 oz pair for sparring and an 8 or 10 oz pair of boxing gloves for pro fights. He should then duplicate the training pair to make sure one pair of boxing gloves can air sufficiently to stay clean and last for longer.
Use Deodorising Spray
If you’re a keen boxer training regularly, or simply notice your boxing gloves smell even after changing your hand wraps and letting your boxing gloves air, you can also use a deodorising spray to kill any bacteria leftover in your gloves. There are specialised disinfectant sprays for boxing gloves that can kill the bacteria without weakening the material of your gloves, or you can simply make your own solution for a cheaper and more natural alternative.
For your own deodorising solution, you can mix one part vinegar to two parts water and lightly spray the inside of your gloves after each use and leave them to air dry, or sprinkle a teaspoon of baking soda into each glove and leave them to air for 24 hours.
Choosing the Right Boxing Gloves
Having clean boxing gloves is essential for your comfort and the durability of your boxing gloves, but you also have to choose the right size boxing glove in the first place for your safety.
While your level or ability has no real bearing on the size of the boxing gloves you should use, it’s important to choose the right weight gloves for the right activity.
- Sparring gloves should be the heaviest to protect your hands and your opponent
- Training gloves should be lighter than sparring gloves, but heavier than fighting gloves
- Boxing gloves for real fights should be the lightest gloves to use your power to overcome your opponent
For training boxing gloves, the heavier the person, the heavier the gloves, which range from 8 to 18 oz, so 12 to 14 oz boxing gloves are generally advisable for adult men training, while 1 to 12 oz boxing gloves are generally advisable for adult women.
Children should have boxing gloves designed specifically for children, as the weight should be much lighter, and the gloves should be smaller to effectively protect their hands. For most children starting to box from 6 to 10 years old, 6 oz gloves are ideal, however, children can develop at very different stages, so it might be best to try on a few pairs before buying them, to make sure they comfortably fit your child’s hands. They should also have their own punching bags, as adult boxing equipment can be too heavy and thus dangerous for children to use.
Buy Your Boxing Gloves from the Best
Why settle for cheaply made boxing gloves that you’ll soon have to replace when you can buy high-quality boxing gloves for an affordable price that will last even longer?
At Maxx Pro Boxing, we pride ourselves on manufacturing boxing equipment using high-quality materials and having our products designed by combat sports experts who know what you need to get out of your equipment. Shop our range of boxing gloves today, and have them delivered right to your door in no time!
