Boxing Gloves Sizes - A Complete Size Guide & Calculator.

In order to help you guys out with choosing your boxing glove size or maybe if your buying gloves for someone else this calculator will help give an insight into the size most likely required. All you need is the primary use of the Boxing Glove and the estimated weight of the user:

Boxing Glove Size Calculator

*This calculator is to give general advice and guidance, please note before sparring it is good practice to do so under professional advice and guidance.

What boxing glove size should I use for training or sparring

Picking the right boxing glove size can be extremely challenging and somewhat confusing as to which size is best for your needs. Mainly because buying boxing gloves unlike other everyday items come in an ounce (Oz) sizing rather than a Small, Medium or large options. There’s also a huge variety of uses for Boxing Gloves from sparring gloves right through to entry level pad and bag cardio drills. So what’s the right glove for you? 

In Photo: Valour Strike Boxing Gloves

Here we aim to give some general advice and guidance to help make that decision a little bit easier. Starting with the 2 main areas to consider:

Consideration 1:  Are you sparring/fighting or hitting the pad or the bag?

Firstly and most importantly you have to know what you want the boxing gloves for, which I hear you say “For punching”. Well, that is completely understandable but the real important factor here is what you will be hitting? Is it a person (sparring) or is it just for focus pad and bag work or maybe you want a good all-round glove to do a bit of both while you try your hand in combat sports?

Consideration 2: What’s your weight/size?

It seems so obvious but believe me we have seen many people down the gym swapping gloves with a 40cm height difference and a 50kg weight difference. That’s literally like Anthony Joshua lending Floyd Mayweather his gloves, it’s just not right. In the case of boxing gloves size really does matter. However, if you and your sparring partners are of a similar size then its fine and fair to share:

In Photo: MMA Sparring Gloves | MMA Shin Guards | MMA Fight Shorts

You simply have to think of it as a wrapper of safety around your hand. That hand is then powered by your weight driving through at a target. Irrelevant of what you hitting your weight really will have an impact on what size gloves are best for you.

When Boxing Gloves are too small there’s not enough padding to punch safely. Plus the restricted size can push the metatarsals and soft tissue of the hand into unnatural positions and under the stress of impact, something is going to give. Then boom you're out of the game for months 🙁.

When Boxing Gloves are too large you’re simply not going to be able to coordinate and control your punches correctly. The added space within the glove will allow the hand to move around under impact and then your wrist becomes under serious threat of injury due to the instability.

Why use bigger boxing sparring gloves:

So in a nutshell, if your sparring then you want a larger glove so you can reduce the risk of injuring your sparring partner. We all need sparring partners to improve, so we don’t want to be knocking them out every time we train and putting them at an unnecessary risk of injury. 

Therefore, by increasing the boxing glove weight and the size of the padding we’re protecting our sparring partners and in addition to this, we are protecting our own fists. As sparring partners unlike punch bags and boxing pads have awkward edges and hard areas that can cause injury to your fists such as the jaw, nose, cheekbones etc. Plus, the fact they’re a moving target makes contact somewhat unpredictable, unlike a punch bag.

In Photo: Red Paw Boxing Gloves

One important note is that there isn’t just one level of sparring. Sparring can be full contact (100%) or a percentage of full force like 50% etc.

Sparring Gloves Size Chart:

Weight (kg)	Weight (lbs)	Weight (Stone)	Gloves Size
40-54kg	88-119lbs	6.3-8.5 Stone	12 oz
54-68kg	119-150lbs	8.5-10.7 Stone	14 oz
68-84kg	150-185lbs	10.7-13.2 Stone	16 oz
84kg+	185lbs+	13.2 Stone+	16oz+

*The boxing sparring glove size guide above is to give a general insight and is not definitive. If your wishing to spar please always do so under professional supervision and guidance.

What’s needed from Boxing Pad & Bag Gloves:

With pad and bag training you generally have a better understanding of how the contact is going to feel across the fist, when to expect it and how stable the target will be under the pressure of your strike. This coupled with the fact that the target you are hitting is also padded enables you to safely strike with a reduced size of boxing glove.

A massive plus to this is that you can seriously step up the pace and get a really good stress relieving session out of the pads.

Punch Bag & Boxing Pad Glove Size Guide:

Weight (kg)	Weight (lbs)	Weight (Stone)	Gloves Size
40-54kg	88-119lbs	6.3-8.5 Stone	8 oz
54-68kg	119-150lbs	8.5-10.7 Stone	10 oz
68-84kg	150-185lbs	10.7-13.2 Stone	12 oz
84kg+	185lbs+	13.2 Stone+	14oz

 

Boxing pad recommendations:

A great choice of boxing focus pads should provide a solid central base for impact, be curved so that the pad person can get more control over the impact of a strike. A safer and more premium pad should also provide a level of cushioning on the rear of the pad which you might find strange but there is a very good reason for that, SAFETY.

In Photo: Boxing Pads

Even the best pro’s in the world can throw a miss placed shot from time to time, this then leads to a miss connection with the focus pad, that then, unfortunately, can result in unexpected and uncontrollable and unbalance strike pressure throughout the boxing pad. Then you guessed it the rear of the pad comes flying backwards in all sorts of directions (normally straight at the pad person’s face) and without the padding it causes unnecessary and avoidable damage.

Pro Competition Boxing Gloves:

Now if you’re serious about boxing and you’re a pro fighter you simply don’t need to be told, as you already know what size gloves your wearing on fight night. Here are some general pointers to help understand a pro boxing glove size.

Firstly, competition gloves are lighter than full contact sparring gloves. Fighters do not wear the same weight gloves as they did when going 100% in sparring. The reason for this is safety, nobody likes it when a fight has been called off because of an injury in sparring.

Plus the little added bonus of the fact on fight night the gloves will feel dramatically lighter making the fighter feel faster and stronger than in sparring.

Although it must be noted that some professionals do spar in competition sized gloves. Although they do this at a reduced contact percentage (i.e. 50%), therefore reducing the chance of injury but getting used to the pace and size of the gloves while in combat.

Another great point is that competition glove sizes are not always fixed in accordance to weight. The fighters can actually agree on a boxing glove size increase or decrease from the norm used for their weight category.

One fantastic example of this is when Floyd Mayweather fought Conor McGregor. Normally Floyd would fight in 10oz boxing gloves, but as McGregor was coming from an MMA Background where 4oz MMA gloves are used Floyd kindly agreed to a weight reduction in glove size to a smaller 8oz option. Therefore, if both fighters agree the weight of the glove can be altered within reason.

“All rounder” size guide for Boxing Training Gloves:

All professionals have at least 2 different weight of gloves in their kit bags for the above purposes. However, if you’re just starting out and don’t want to over-commit to funding 2 sets of gloves you might want something that fits nicely in the middle. In this case, we would say if you intend to spar heavy go for the sparring glove size for safety. If your only looking to do pad and bag work maybe with a touch of light sparring go for the Boxing Pad & Bag Glove size but remember to go easy in sparring.

Why use Boxing Hand Wraps:

Boxers claim they feel less pain when striking, therefore they can strike with an increased force. Hand wraps increase injury prevention by maintaining the alignment of the joints, compressing and lending strength to the soft tissue of the hand during the impact of a punch. For such a small item they do wonders. Every serious boxer has a pair.

Boxing hand wraps also significantly strengthen the metacarpus, reducing the likelihood of a fracture of one of the metacarpal bones. Such a fracture is commonly referred to as "boxer's fracture".

In Photo: White Paw Boxing Gloves

Boxing Gloves Size Guide (In Conclusion):

There are 2 main aspects to consider when buying your boxing gloves, user size and user intent. Once you have established this you have a great basis to work from. Pop those details in the above calculator and that will give you a recommended size.

The bigger the glove the more the protection but you don’t want to go over the top and have oversized gloves otherwise you will lose form and speed. Professional bouts are not always in the same size glove for a specific weight.

Boxing is such a great sport and there are so many benefits to it, whether its stress relief, self-defence, confidence, socializing, discipline, focusing or trophy hunting all of these can be achieved within the sport. Not just that you get to pick your own level of participation, you can just start off in the garage with a friend, a pair of gloves and a set of boxing pads. Or you can go all in and train toward a fight, the choice is yours. But whatever you do focus on your journey and don’t forget to Beat Your Best.