Buying the Right Type of MMA Gloves

MMA Gloves can serve a variety of purposes.  They protect the bones in your hands and your knuckles and they protect your wrist from hyper extending during grappling and striking. Due to the gloves having an open palm design they also offer the ability to change between grappling and striking when fighting your opponent.

Let's look into the distinct types of MMA Gloves.  The most common pair of MMA Gloves is the 4oz competition glove. This glove is used in all mixed martial arts competitions. It has light padding round the knuckles, supportive wrist strap and an open palm design. This glove is suitable for competition fighting and grappling but not suitable for sparring due to the small amount of padding. 8oz MMA sparring gloves have quite a bit more padding to protect the knuckles than the 4oz gloves. They also have an open palm design and can be used in grappling training and sparring but are not suitable for MMA competition fighting.

There are also specialized types of MMA Gloves including customised gloves.  Due to the rise in popularity of mixed martial arts there are a lot more companies that have started to offer customised MMA gear. You can choose colour, material, and density of foam padding and variations of the strap. A customised pair of gloves will cost you more money but you will have a one off pair of gloves that are personalised to your fighting needs. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

There are many other types of MMA Gloves in the market.  All of them offer distinct features and designs that appeal to a large majority of fighters.  However, how does one choose a good pair for a particular fighter?  There are some good ways to determine the type of gloves that fighters will appreciate. 

The type of training that a fighter does will help determine what gloves he will need. If he’s training just for fun or to keep fit then a pair of 8oz sparring gloves will do the trick because they can be used during grappling, sparring or when training on the punch bag. If the fighter wants to compete in MMA then a 4oz pair will be needed. Most people who compete in MMA will have a 4oz pair and also an 8oz pair. This will cover all aspects of their training.

After deciding what type of MMA gloves you want to get you can always go online and check out the many new designs and types of MMA Gloves.  Compare prices and read reviews from buyers.  This is the best way to gauge if a pair of gloves will be worth the money. Most websites now have a review section and it’s there that you will find unbiased reviews from other fighters about all the top branded MMA gloves. Get a feel from 2-3 reviews and you should be able to choose the right pair for you.