If you’re a serious boxing fan, it’s obvious that while watching a match, you may wonder why boxers use gloves instead of fighting bare-fisted.
While the eye-soothing lighting punches boxers throw may take your excitement to a whole new level, it may cause them immense pain or even cause the loosening of the opponent’s jaw bone. That’s where gloves come in handy. They’re used for different reasons including protection and creating exciting boxing matches.
How Do Gloves Protect the Fighters?
The primary reason gloves are used in boxing is to protect the fighters from hand injuries. Hand injuries are very common in combat sports such as boxing, despite glove use. A good way to emphasize just how much gloves protect the hands is by watching a bare-knuckle boxing match.
Bare-knuckle boxing only allows fighters to wrap their wrist and thumb, but not their knuckles. Most fighters break their hands in almost every fight.
The reason the hands get injured during a fight is due to the density of the skull compared to that of the hands. The bones of the hand are small and delicate, allowing us to use our hands and fingers for precise movements, such as writing or catching.
In contrast, the skull's only purpose is to protect and contain one of the most important (and fragile) organs, the brain. Due to the importance of the brain, the skull becomes the hardest bone in our bodies.
Striking another person’s head with our fragile hands results in injured hand bones. Therefore, it’s important for someone training in a combat sport like boxing to wear both hand wraps and gloves.
Preventing Finger Joint Displacement
One of the main functions of boxing gloves is to provide a cushion for the finger joints. Finger joints are most vulnerable to the shock of a punch. The impact point in time of the punch may have a devastating effect causing damage in the knuckles. Gloves here stand as a protection shield that works based on the equal distribution of force.
Protecting Your Opponents
The impact of the force in a moving object is known as momentum. Boxing is all about momentum. Without boxing gloves, the effect of the momentum is much higher and effective than with gloves.
Without gloves the momentum a punch carries may result in heavy damage and bring some misfortunes to opponents. The larger area due to the boxing gloves reduces the impact of the shock. This helps to protect an opponent from any serious injuries.
Reducing Blood Bath
It's a common phenomenon that competitors bleed from the forehead to the nose during a boxing match. Some serious thunderbolt boxing punch can follow through into the bleeding eventually resulting in a blood bath.
Blood loss due to a fight happens more frequently if the boxer doesn’t use boxing gloves. Bare-knuckle boxing reduces the area and drastically increases the force. This results in increased damage that consequently ends in a blood bath between two opponents.
Wrist Support
From a medical perspective, the shock that results from the momentum of a boxing punch may do some serious injury. Protection from that momentum can be given by gloves.
Wrist injuries have a lasting effect and take a longer time to recover. This puts a threat against the career of a boxer. Boxing gloves or wrapping of the hand gives the wrist stability during the shock so the boxer can avoid injuries.
How Safe Is Fighting with Gloves On?
Gloves are a very good way to prevent hand injuries in combat sports. However, fighting with any type of gloves isn’t safe for the fighters. The main reason glove use is unsafe is because of the increased risk of brain damage.
The protection of the hand allows the fighters to swing their hands harder, with more impact, without needing to worry about potential injury. If a fighter can hit harder without breaking their hands, then it makes sense to do so. However, while gloves decrease the risk of a hand injury, they increase the risk of brain injury.
Because fighters can hit harder, the brain is subject to harder punches. It’s true that bigger gloves, such as those used in boxing, can decrease the impact of a punch. However, brain injury is caused by the quick acceleration of the brain, not the impact of the punch. That’s why car crashes can result in brain injury, even if the victim’s head was never hit by anything.
Safety When Boxing
From the viewpoint of a long-lasting career, the use of boxing gloves will have a huge impact on an opponent's safety and provide a secure environment. More use of gloves will ensure there are fewer broken hands and nose bleeding of the boxers. Moreover, there's a lower chance of facial lacerations that take time to heal when gloves are used.
