Proper Boxing Glove Fit and Sizing

This was first covered in the forums, but I've moved it here to address some questions on this and previous pages.

I don't know if you've read through this boxing glove guide, but it gives you the basics of sizing. To expand on what is in the article, to a newbie, boxing gloves feel quite odd and I'm not completely sure that the gloves you have right now don't actually fit you. If you are an average size male a pair of large gloves pretty much covers you.

The best way to pick a pair is to wrap your hands and try them on. They should fit snugly as they will likely stretch with time and punishment.

Now I know you've said that it seems your contact point is on the back of the glove. I can't quite visualize what you're getting at, but let me describe how your hand should fit in the glove and then you can see if your gloves are coming close to that.

First, the tips of your fingers should reach all the way forward to the end of the glove. Often there is a small padded bar on the palm side of the glove. If your fingers are all the way forward, that bar should lay across the bottom of your knuckles and fold nicely into your palm when you actually make a fist inside the glove. If that happens, you can be reasonably assured that the glove fits you properly.

As for the padding, the top of the knuckles will always be back behind the bend of the glove as you really aren't hitting right on your knuckles, but rather slightly forward of them in a straight line with your arm if you hold a fist out in front of you. The way gloves are designed, they provide more padding at a point just above your 2nd set of knuckles and tapers off slightly the closer you get to the 1st knuckles in order to maximize the amount of padding and square off the impact.

Below is a picture I tried to draw to make this more clear. Forgive my artwork.

Glove Sizing

Notice the lines on the first glove. The circle near the top of the glove depicts your first knuckles, the 2nd circle the 2nd knuckles. When you make a fist if your knuckles are positioned close to the position in the first picture, then you get the most padding along the striking plane which extends down from your first to second knuckles. If your knuckles are positioned forward as is the case in the second picture, there is less padding. Same thing happens if they are positioned too far back - you lose padding.

This may not seem very intuitive, but I suspect you'll find that when you make a fist in your glove and hit, the padding is actually positioned fairly close to where you want it to be. A better indicator is how comfortable the gloves feel. You'll know if they are too small and you'll know if they're too big (hands slide all over inside of them). A nice snug fit is just right.

Hope that helps.

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