Padding Design

The boxing glove's most important function-which is to protect your hand-will be most supported by the glove padding. Proper knuckle padding protects your hands from injury when punching dense objects (like heavy bag or opponent's skull). The backside and palm-side padding helps you defend against attacks when blocking or parrying. You'll find out soon enough that the padding design not only gives you protection but also affects your fighting style.

The padding can also act as a training aid or handicap. Two fighters of equal weight will choose lighter gloves for a faster sparring match, and heavier gloves for a harder-punching sparring match. Two fighters of uneven weight or uneven skill may offset their disparity with differently-weighted gloves. Alone on the heavy bag, a fighter can use lighter gloves to work on speed or heavier gloves for more protection and/or to condition his arms.