How to Disinfect Boxing Gloves?

Wearing boxing gloves while training is essential for your comfort and safety while training, but as well as taking care of yourself, you need to take care of your boxing gloves.

Disinfecting boxing gloves well after each use is crucial for their long life, preventing them from smelling and greatly lowering the risk of developing skin irritation. But as boxing gloves are usually made from leather or synthetic leather, you need to know what chemicals to use on them without damaging the material of the gloves.

Here are the basics of how to disinfect boxing gloves and what to look for when you eventually have to buy a new pair.

Why You Need to Disinfect Your Boxing Gloves

When you exercise enough, you notice your body gets covered with sweat. The sweat is predominantly produced in places like your armpits as there are more sweat glands in areas with more hair follicles, however, we produce sweat all over the body, including our arms and hands.

The sweat rinses our skin of bacteria, effectively cleaning our skin and removing dirt from our pores, however, if that sweat collects somewhere, like gym clothes or boxing gloves, the bacteria inside live and multiply, causing the material they’re on to smell. The bacteria can also live on the material, eating away at particles and weakening it, causing the material to crack and break.

Boxing gloves should last around 2 years when they’re properly cared for, however, with regular use and without effective cleaning, it can be necessary to replace them as quickly as 6 months after initial use.

Moreover, bacteria and fungi grow easily in dark and damp conditions like your gym bag, locker or inside of your boxing gloves, and these bacteria or fungi can irritate your skin. People with pre-existing skin conditions like eczema or psoriasis are particularly sensitive to bacterial or fungal infections on the skin, so need to take extra care of their boxing gloves to ensure minimal bacterial growth and healthier skin.

So, how do you clean them?

How to Disinfect Boxing Gloves

Unfortunately, you can’t simply throw your boxing gloves in the washing machine as soaking them in water can greatly damage the material. Boxing gloves are sized according to their weight – the weight is the amount of padding in the glove. If you soak this material padding in water, it can become misshapen and ineffective at the boxing gloves’ principal job: protecting your hands.

Rather than soaking them and damaging the materials, instead, to clean your boxing gloves, you should use disinfectants to spray the inside of your boxing gloves after each use to prevent the bacteria from spreading. You can buy deodorising or disinfectant sprays from supermarkets as well as specialist sports shops, or make your own. Some people prefer to make their own if they have sensitive skin, as strong chemicals can irritate the skin.

The best disinfectant spray is made from two parts water to one part vinegar, which effectively kills the bacteria and neutralises any smell in the gloves, however, you can also use baking soda. Sprinkle a teaspoon of baking soda into the gloves, being careful to cover all areas, including the fingers and thumb and leave to sit for 24 hours. Baking soda is, however, less effective than vinegar.

Don’t Use Alcohol!

Alcohol may seem like an all-purpose cleaner, and you may even have a lot of hand sanitiser leftover from the height of the Coronavirus pandemic, but alcohol should not be used to clean boxing gloves. Alcohol can cause the material to dry out greatly, especially leather, so if used on boxing gloves, it will cause them to dry and crack, rendering them useless and causing you to need a new pair.

Drying Your Boxing Gloves

When both wet from sweat and wet from the disinfectant spray, you need to dry your boxing gloves well before you use them again and before the dampness leads to further bacteria growth. Never put your boxing gloves in the tumble dryer as the heat can break the leather and melt the velcro close.

When drying your boxing gloves, you should open them as much as possible and leave them in a warm, dry and airy location. This will help the moisture leave the gloves, as well as any leftover smell. You can hang your gloves on the washing line, but not for more than 30 minutes in direct sunlight as the sun’s rays can damage the leather and synthetic leather, causing it to crack.

If your gloves ever become too dry, or you want to keep them looking brand new after cleaning, you can use a leather conditioner or essential oil to gently rub into the gloves and keep the material moisturised.

Cleaning Your Hand Wraps

One way of ensuring your boxing gloves last longer and stay fresher is by making sure you always wear a clean pair of hand wraps underneath. Hand wraps protect your hands further from damage, and are the first thing to absorb your sweat before it reaches your boxing gloves. By washing your hands and wrapping them in clean hand wraps each time, you can prevent your sweat from collecting so much bacteria and prevent your sweat from causing your gloves to smell.

Hand wraps can be washed in the washing machine so they’re much easier to maintain, and at a reasonable price, it’s easy to invest in a few pairs to make sure you always have fresh ones to put on before training.

Buying New Boxing Gloves

There are a few things to look for when buying a new pair of boxing gloves. If you’re replacing an old pair, then it’s as easy as buying the same size as before but if you’re a beginner wondering what size to buy, then you should think about a few factors:

• What’s your weight?
• How big are your hands?
• What type of training will you be doing?
• How regularly will you train?

Heavy boxing gloves don’t do more damage than lighter ones and they don’t make you hit harder either. The weight of the boxing glove should be chosen according to the weight of the boxer and what activity they’re doing.

For example, a professional welterweight boxer may use 12 or 14 oz boxing gloves when training with punching bags and focus pads, 16 oz boxing gloves for sparring and 10 oz boxing gloves for pro fights. The lighter gloves allow you to use your full punching power on your opponent, so you want thicker, heavier gloves to protect your sparring partner. So a heavyweight pro may use 14 or 16 oz gloves for training, 18 oz sparring gloves to prevent hurting their training partner, and still use 10 oz gloves for fights.

Boxing Glove Size Guide

Therefore for training purposes, most people can use the following size guide to work out which size boxing gloves are needed:

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

As people under 45 kg require the smallest gloves for training, children around 10 years old should wear 6 oz boxing gloves. However, you can buy specialist boxing gloves for children as their hands are smaller. Similarly, there are some boxing gloves for women to accommodate smaller hands more comfortably, while most boxing gloves are unisex or made for men, so men can easily find the right size boxing gloves.

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