Looking at other weight lifters in the gym and wondering why they wear gloves? Or if you should also invest in one of these pairs?
These weight-lifting gloves may seem like an accessory to you, but the truth is, they are not. These cross-fit gloves have unlimited benefits for your hands, such as protecting your hands from bruises, better wrist support, increased stability, etc.
Even though the jury is still not in regarding whether lifting gloves are good or bad, this article will reveal anything and everything you need to know about weight lifting gloves. So that there is no shadow of a doubt when you go to buy them or the next time you see a lifter wearing them at your gym.
Types of Weight Lifting Gloves
Let’ start by understanding the various kinds of workout gloves that are available in the market.
1. Pull Up Gloves With Wrist Support
These fingerless weight lifting gloves have wrist wraps at the ends. You finish off wearing them by tightening the wrist straps for more comfort while lifting. Apart from this, the wraps allow you to secure your wrists, reducing the chance of injuries.
2. Fingerless glove with extended pad and a wrist wrap
These kinds of gloves cover just the palms of your hand while providing wrist support with an extended wrist wrap. They are breathable but leave the knuckles bare, which may not feel very comfortable.
3. Four Fingers Open-Top Palmless Gloves
Four fingers open-top palmless gloves provide comfort for your fingers only. The open thumb does not restrict movement nor creates dependence on gloves. Whereas having no wrist support may lead to serious hand injuries.
4. Grip Pads
Grip pads are also a kind of exercise gloves that lifters use when working out. These pads cover up the palms of the lifters, helping them avoid sweaty palms and loosening the grip when exercising.
5. Five Fingers Half-Finger Gloves With An Open-Top
Lastly, we have the five fingers half-finger gloves with an open-top. These exercise gloves only protect the fingers when lifting heavyweights. Even though it has maximum breathability, it has no major traits that benefit weight lifters.
Benefits Of Weight Lifting gloves
Even when the lifters are divided on wearing or not wearing the weight lifting gloves, none can deny the benefits of these workout gloves.
Here are the top ten benefits that these workout gloves offer.
1. Lift More Weight (Elevate Your Lifting Games)
When wearing the weight lifting gloves with wrist support, you can lift more weight than usual. Wondering how is that possible?
Well, when you wear the workout gloves and wrap a strap around the wrist, the entire weight being lifted is distributed in between your palm, forearm, and fingers.
Apart from this, it keeps you focused on exercising the right muscles instead of focusing on your grip. Ultimately enabling you to work out longer and perform more reps and sets of lifting exercises than you previously could.
2. Protect Your Fingers (Protects Fingers from Muscle Injuries)
Are you one of those gym enthusiasts who like to lift heavier weights than others? Here’s a piece of advice; investing in the best weight lifting gloves will be the most worthwhile thing you’ll ever do for yourself.
When you’re lifting weights, your fingers tend to take up all the load. This excessive load stresses the tendons present in your fingers and may even lead up to tendonitis.
Wearing the workout gloves creates a barrier between your fingers and the weight and provides the extra support your hands and fingers require. This enables you to lift heavier weights while reducing the risk of muscle injuries.
3. Decreases Calluses (Say Goodbye to Calluses)
When lifting heavy weights regularly, the friction between the bars and the skin can cause the lifter’s hands to develop blisters or calluses.
Calluses are the hard skin patches that are majorly caused due to reduced moisture and constant rubbing of skin against hard surfaces. Even though they are not dangerous to your health, they may get ripped or cracked and become painful, causing the lifter to step away from the weights.
Wearing weight lifting gloves with half fingers protects the hands from getting bruised. They provide a cushion for the hands and help retain moisture in your palms to reduce any chances of calluses occurring in the future.
4. No Need of Chalk (No More Gym Chalks)
Having sweaty palms is not unusual, but if they are causing hurdles for you while lifting and you’re doing nothing about them, this is a serious problem.
Having sweaty palms causes obstacles in lifting weights and performing pull exercises, increasing the chances of injuries while working out.
Gym Chalks may help you control your sweat for some time, but they eventually wear off. Wearing the DMoose weight lifting gloves ensures that your hands stay dry throughout your training sessions, so you can safely work out for longer hours without stressing over your grip.
5. Increases Stability
Having issues with unstable grip while lifting? Scared if the weights might fall off? Using the weight lifting gloves, you can secure and stabilize your grip like never before.
When using weights for strength training, it is very important to ensure stability. Having shaky hands and wrists can pose injuries to the lifters.
Using weight lifting gloves while doing the lifting exercises allows the weight to be distributed across the forearm. Apart from this, the anti-slip feature in DMoose weight lifting gloves ensures that you can lift without worrying about the bar slipping away.
6. Improves workout Techniques (Creates Mind and Muscle Connection)
Having to focus on your grip constantly can be stressful and cause you to lose focus on the exercise you’re performing.
When using the weight lifting gloves, you’ll be able to focus more on the workout. The ventilated gloves ensure that your palms stay dry throughout, and the anti-slip grip allows you to hold yourself steady on the bars.
When you’re not worried about the weights dropping or your hands losing grips, your mind will be able to focus better on the exercises. This will create a mind and muscle connection and make your workouts more effective.
7. Cushion Reduce Hand Pain ( Flexibility Helps Cushion Previous Injuries)
Wearing weight lifting gloves that are not too thick or too heavily padded can help you start lifting weights again.
If you have faced some hand injury in the past, then lifting weights may be a little difficult for you. Wearing cross-fit gloves with light padding and an anti-slip grip can help you live through your lifting dreams again.
This thin padding provides the lifter with the cushion they need to overcome the injury. At the same time, the flexibility allows you to grip the bars easily without putting in too much effort, hence creating a win-win situation.
8. Wrist Support
When lifting heavy weights on our bare hands, our wrists turn backward to support the barbells and dumbbells pressure.
But if you’re interested in lifting heavy weights and not damaging your wrist muscles then, buying a pair of weight lifting gloves can save you from any serious injuries.
When wearing the gloves for exercising, the wrist wraps act as an added tendon or ligament. This added wrist support allows you to pull off heavyweights, all the while helping you avoid any wrist injuries.
9. Reduced Pressure
If sore arms hold you back from lifting heavy weights, CrossFit gloves can help you overcome this problem.
A good pair of workout gloves should absorb the pressure created by lifting the weights and evenly distributing it while reducing your arms’ pressure.
Weight lifting gloves are specially created to relieve the pressure of the weights from your hands and allow you to surpass your lifting limitations.
10. Comfort
Comfort is something that nobody compromises on, and when it comes to lifting heavy weights, it is of utmost importance.
DMoose weight lifting gloves come with four-way stretch Lycra Fabric and Silicone Padding, making it one of the most comfortable workout gloves in the market.
Wearing these gloves helps you avoid the unpleasantness of weight lifting and provides you with a comfortable soft-grip for holding the cold and hard barbells and dumbbells at your gym.
What To Look Out For When Buying Weight Lifting Gloves
I am sure that going through the above ten benefits has managed to convince you to invest in a pair of gloves of your own.
Hence, here is a guide for you to buy the best weight lifting gloves available in the market.
1. Padding
When buying weight lifting gloves, one of the most important things to check for is; Padding. Buy gloves that have padding at the palm. This cushion on the palm will protect your hands from getting any blisters or calluses while giving you a comfortable environment for lifting.
Ensure that glove fingers have a little padding to protect your finger ligaments while giving you a flexible and strong grip on the bar.
2. Grip
The next thing to check for is the grip. When lifting weights, it is of utmost importance to ensure a firm grip on the bar. A poor grip can result in weights falling off of your hands and causing serious injuries.
Weight lifting gloves come with anti-slip silicon padding on the palms, giving the lifter a sound and firm bar grip. This allows you to maintain a better grip and control of the bars when doing deadlifts or shrugs.
3. Flexibility
The third thing to look out for in exercise gloves and fitness gloves is flexibility. Yes, your gloves need to be flexible to give you a full firm grip on the bars.
If the gloves have minimum flexibility, the fingers will not hold on to the bars properly, causing obstacles in your training routines.
4. Wrist Support
When lifting heavy weights, our wrists and fingers are the ones bearing all the hefty weights.
Having weight lifting gloves with wrist support allows you to distribute the weight across the forearms and helps avoid any injuries and wrist pains.
Not all gloves come with wrist support, so make sure you invest in the ones with the wrist strap so you can lift heavier weights for longer durations throughout your training sessions.
5. Breathability
Breathability is also one of the important things to factor in when looking to buy cross-fit gloves.
Having proper ventilation is very important when lifting weights. If the gloves do not have ventilated or breathable material, your hands will start to get sweaty, leading to calluses, blisters, and poor grip.
6. Durability
Lastly, durability is also necessary for your gloves. Durability is ensured by the material being used for the gloves, the stitching, and ventilation.
DMoose weight lifting gloves are made with 4-way stretch Lycra Fabric and Silicon Padding. This material is not just flexible but breathable as well, offering maximum durability and comfort.
Alternates For Lifting Gloves
If you’re still doubtful about whether buying weight lifting gloves is good or bad for you, then don’t worry. Here are a few alternatives that you can use instead of the gloves, giving you a firmer grip and help you lift heavier weights.
1. Weight Lifting Hooks
Yes, weight lifting hooks perform all the similar actions the weight lifting gloves do. They have wrist support straps and hooks to balance off the weight of the barbells and the dumbbells, empowering you to lift heavier weights during your training.
2. Weight Lifting Straps
Weight lifting straps are also an option if you don’t want to buy exercise gloves. These straps also mimic the benefits of the workout gloves, ensuring you can hold the weights without fearing the grip or risking any injuries.
3. Gym Chalks
Gym chalks can also be an alternative for weight lifting gloves, but not a very good one. The chalks may help you lift weights, but they can get messy and quickly wear off. Some gyms also don’t allow chalks because of the mess and breathing problems they create for the lifters.
Conclusion
Now that we’ve had a detailed and thorough discussion on the benefits of weight lifting gloves and if lifting gloves are good or bad, we can surely say that these workout gloves are one of the best investments you will be making in your fitness journey.
Even though it is still a personal choice to wear gloves, you cannot deny the endless benefits they empower the lifters. Whether you’ve had a wrist injury in the past or are learning to lift heavy weights, the weight lifting gloves can be your rooter in your lifting journey.
References
- Upper Extremity Weightlifting Injuries: Diagnosis and Management. Journal of Orthopaedics, vol. 15, no. 1, Mar. 2018, pp. 24–27. www.sciencedirect.com, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jor.2017.11.005.
- Levine, Norman. ‘Friction Blisters’. The Physician and Sportsmedicine, vol. 10, no. 3, Mar. 1982, pp. 84–92. Taylor and Francis+NEJM, https://doi.org/10.1080/00913847.1982.11947185.
- ‘Corns and Calluses in Athletes’ Feet: A Cause for Concern’. The Foot, vol. 14, no. 4, Dec. 2004, pp. 175–84. www.sciencedirect.com, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foot.2004.07.005.
- Bengtsson, Victor, et al. ‘Narrative Review of Injuries in Powerlifting with Special Reference to Their Association to the Squat, Bench Press and Deadlift’. BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, vol. 4, no. 1, July 2018, p. e000382. bmjopensem.bmj.com, https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000382.
This post was last modified on November 12, 2022 12:40 am