If you are training in Krav Maga or a variety of other martial arts, there’s a good chance you will find yourself sparring or hitting the heavy bag at some time. There’s no better way to refine your techniques than through practice and hitting the heavy bag is a great way to practice your punching and kicking technique. Today, let’s talk about training gloves. Although you can use these for sparring (so you can put your training partner’s headgear to good use) we’ll be talking about how you can use the Everlast Pro Style Training Gloves to help with your conditioning training and bag work.
Overview
The Everlast Pro Style Training Gloves are a great addition to your training equipment. They come in a variety of weights (mine are 12 oz) and include an attached thumb for safety and a mesh palm for quicker drying. The wrist wraps are a little short, making it a little tough to put on the gloves yourself but overall, these training gloves do a great job.
Pros
- Good quality and inexpensive
- Mesh palm for quick drying
- Attached thumb
Cons
- Wrist strap is short, making it a little difficult to put on the gloves yourself
- Made from vinyl, not leather
Ready to get your own Everlast Pro Style Training Gloves?
For more details, continue reading for a full review…
Everlast Pro Style Training Gloves – Full Review
Let’s face it; hitting someone with big, cushy gloves can be great fun. That is, until they start hitting back. The right gloves can be the difference between a challenging sparring match or a down right beating. The bigger you or your partners are, the bigger your gloves need to be. Although they come in a variety of weights, most men will use 16 oz gloves for sparring and either 12 oz or 14 oz for bag work. Women will often use 12 oz or 14 oz for sparring and either the same or a little lighter for bag work.
The Everlast Pro Style Training Gloves we will be talking about today are 12 oz and are used for bag work. The weight of the gloves, in this case 12 oz, usually imply how much padding they contain. With that in mind, it makes sense why you should prefer to get hit with 16 oz gloves rather than 12 oz gloves (roughly 4 oz of extra padding). The more padding in the glove, the more cushion for your target. Of course, you can still put a beating on someone with 16 oz gloves, but they are a little more forgiving than lighter ones.
In sparring, you will typically have headgear, a mouth guard, shin guards, and gloves. Regardless of how big and protective your headgear is, you feel it when you get punched in the head. Big 16 oz gloves help with that impact but if you use your sparring gloves for bag work, you run the risk of compressing the padding. Good quality gloves will resist the compression better but it’s often a good idea to have a pair of gloves dedicated for sparring and a pair dedicated for punch the heavy bag.
My personal sparring gloves are 16 oz Raja Boxing Muay Thai Gloves. They are fantastic and dedicated to sparring. My Everlast Pro Style Training Gloves are my training gloves and are dedicated to bag work. When I decided to purchase training gloves, here are the things I looked for:
- Cost
- Good fit
- Quick drying
- Durablity
Cost
Cost is always a concern when purchasing training gear. Buying the best quality you can afford is great advice but you can spend a ton of money on great equipment you don’t take full advantage of. It’s like buying a race car and only driving it 45 mph; sure it will go that speed but you are paying a lot of extra money for features you aren’t using. The most expensive, complicated thing is not always the best.
If you are buying a completely new piece of equipment, my advice is to buy good quality but inexpensive. That’s what I found with the Everlast Pro Style Training Gloves. They were about $25 and available locally (at Academy Sports).
Being available locally helps with the next important, a good fit.
Good Fit
Few things are as aggrivating as poor fitting equipment and that goes double for training gloves. Of course, there are no standard sizes for gloves and the available gloves range in size from the really small to the crazy big. Depending on the model of gloves, your only choices may be small/medium or large/x-large. Great if they fit, terrible if you are between those sizes.
Trying on the gloves you plan to purchase can really help with your decision. Some gloves will fit but not feel quite right. Others will feel good but your hand will slide around. What you want are gloves that are just right. After trying on a number of different gloves, I settled on the Everlast gloves. They had the best fit for the cost.
Quick Drying
Gloves can get pretty nasty if they are tossed, sweaty and wet, into your bag after training. There are many ideas to help dry out gloves including pouches of baking soda, glove dogs, boot dryers, and more but to help with the smell, you really need to dry out your gloves. The mesh palms are great to speed the drying while adding to the air flow when wearing, especially when combined with hand wraps. As long as you don’t zip these gloves up tight in a bag, they will dry very quickly and should be ready for your next training session.
Durability
Good leather gloves have the reputation of lasting a very long time as long as you take care of them. Unfortunately, good leather gloves are expensive and not always necessary. Often times, inexpensive vinyl gloves will last long enough for most uses. After about 8 months of use, these Everlast Pro Style Training Gloves have held up very well with just light wear showing, of all places, where the thumb connects with the rest of the glove. Not enough wear to cause any problems, just a little fraying.
Bringing it all together
Overall, the Everlast Pro Style Training Gloves are a good choice for your training needs. They are a good value for the cost, they fit like a glove (so to speak…), they dry quick and they have hold up well. While they are not perfect, they do a good job for my training needs.
One improvement I would suggest would be to make the wrist wrap longer. The current strap works well holding the gloves closed but when you are trying to put the gloves on yourself, it can be difficult. If you compare the length of the wrist wraps on the Everlast gloves to other gloves (such as this Revgear Deluxe Boxing Glove), you will find that the Pro Style Training Gloves are about half as long. Not that there is anything wrong with that; it just depends on what you prefer. Again, in my experience, it makes them a little tough to put on.
After using these gloves 2-3 times per week over the past 8 months or so doing fitness kickboxing, I can say that the padding and overall glove has held up very well. They don’t have the wrist support you might expect in a more expensive glove, but they work well. If you need more wrist support, these gloves work well with hand wraps.
Weight
One more thing to keep in mind when deciding on training gloves: weight. The heavier the glove, the more padding. Of course, the heavier the glove, the heavier the glove. Your arms and shoulders will know the difference between a training session with 16 oz gloves and a training session with 12 oz gloves. Four ounces doesn’t sound like much but the difference will surprise you.
Fighters will sometimes train with heavier gloves than they would use for matches because it builds strength and speed. If you train with an 18 or 20 oz glove and fight with a 16 oz, your punches will have much more speed and thus, more force (force = mass * acceleration; you can’t change the weight of your hand but you can swing faster). If you’re not training to fight competitively, you have more options when it comes to training gear.
The weight of your training gloves is a personal choice. You can get the same weight as your sparring gloves to get accustom to the weight or you could get lighter training gloves to work more on your form. I decided to get lighter gloves for a specific purpose (a weekend training seminar) that would not make my arms fall off after using them all day. These 12 oz Everlast Pro Style Training Gloves were great for that training and for my training since.
Want more options?
There are tons of sparring and training gloves available in the market. Here are a few on Amazon to consider:
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