This ultimate guide will cover what boxing gloves size you should get.
Specifically, I will explain the sizes of boxing gloves and explore what size to get depending on the type of training and who you are.
When stepping into the world of boxing, one of the most critical decisions you’ll make is choosing the right pair of boxing gloves.
This seems like an easy and basic task…
Or is it?
Dive into the universe of boxing and you will realise many different sizes and types of boxing gloves exist for different purposes.
Worry not—by the time you read this article, you’ll have complete knowledge of what boxing gloves size you should get for specific boxing training!
Basics of Boxing Gloves Sizes
Before we explain what glove sizes you should get, let’s start with the basics.
Allow me to introduce you to the boxing metrics system.
We often associate size with distance.
But in the world of boxing gloves, size is actually a measure of weight—specifically in ounces.
This weight is a crucial determinant of the level of cushioning your fists receive during boxing training, sparring, and competition.
What Are Ounces (Oz) In Boxing Gloves?
Boxing glove weight is measured in ounces (or abbreviated as oz), with common sizes ranging from 6 oz to 24 ounces.
However, the standard weight options are typically 12, 14, and 16 ounces.
In general, the heavier the glove the more protection it offers!
A heavier glove features more padding, providing enhanced protection for your fists, knuckles, and wrists. This is particularly important to minimize the risk of injuries during intense training for your upcoming competitive bouts.
The lighter the glove, the faster and the more accurate you can hit.
Lighter gloves, such as 12-ounce options, are well-suited for practice sessions. With less padding, you can experience a closer connection to your punches, enabling you to refine your technique and precision.
Also, you’re able to throw more punches and so you’re able to refine your technique.
So, the short version.
Get heavier gloves for better fist protection and to train conditioning.
Get lighter gloves if you want to focus on refining your punching technique and precision.
What Boxing Gloves Sizes To Get For My Body Weight, Gender, Or Age?
Let’s now go into the specifics.
Aside from preferences, boxing gloves’ size correlated with your own weight and size.
Of course, the bigger and heavier you are, the harder you hit and the bigger the strain on your fists.
So in general, the heavier you are, the heavier gloves you should use!
These are some general guidelines to follow.
Men’s Boxing Gloves Size By Weight
These are for male boxers.
- Less Than 100 lbs (45 kg): 8 – 10 oz gloves for boxing training and 12 – 16 oz gloves for sparring.
- 100 – 150 lbs (45 – 68 kg): 10 – 12 oz gloves for boxing training and 16 oz gloves for sparring.
- Over 150 lbs (68 kg): 12 – 14 oz gloves for boxing training and at least 16 oz gloves for sparring.
Women’s And Youth’s Gloves Size by Weight
Follow these if you are a youth boxer or a female boxer.
- Less Than 100 lbs (45 kg): 6 oz gloves (or youth gloves) for boxing training and 12 – 16 oz gloves for sparring.
- 100 – 110 lbs (45 – 50 kg): 8 oz gloves for boxing training and 16 oz gloves for sparring.
- 110 – 130 lbs (50 – 59 kg): 10 oz gloves for boxing training and 16 oz gloves for sparring.
- Over 130 lbs (59 kg): 12 oz gloves for boxing training and 16 oz gloves for sparring.
Here’s important information about the glove sizes—the number label on the gloves is the weight of each individual glove, not the combined weight of the pair!
Types Of Boxing Gloves & Sizes To Get
Let’s dig deeper and analyse what boxing glove sizes to get for different purposes.
I will introduce you to five types of boxing gloves and their sizes.
Specifically, I’ll analyse their key features, advantages and disadvantages, and give you my personal recommendation on what to get based on years of boxing experience using them.
The gloves are:
- Training Gloves (14 – 16 oz),
- Bag Gloves (8 – 12 oz),
- Sparring Gloves (14 – 18 oz),
- Competition Gloves (8 – 10 oz), and
- Speed Gloves (6 – 8 oz).
Training Gloves (12 - 16 oz)
Main feature: versatility
If you want to buy boxing gloves and use them for any type of boxing training, the safest bet is to go for 12-16 oz sized training gloves.
Training gloves are the workhorses of boxing gear.
Ranging from 12 to 16 ounces, they strike a balance between protection and speed.
They tend to be not too stiff in padding, but not too soft as in feel like pillows.
These gloves are suitable for a variety of training activities, from bag work to mitts and light sparring.
The added padding ensures better hand and wrist protection, making them an ideal choice for those who engage in various training routines.
If those gloves were a political party, they would truly deserve the title of ‘catch-all-party’.
They are sort for everyone!
After years of boxing training, a good pair of training gloves is truly the only one you’ll ever need if you can’t spare some cash to invest in equipment.
Can’t go wrong and the best choice if you are starting your journey with boxing.
Training Gloves Recommendation (Under $100)
TITLE Boxing Gloves
- Decent Protection
- Greatest Value For Money
- Decent Wrist Support
- Decent Protection
- Will Only Last About A Year
- Tight fit (unsuitable for using wraps)
Bag Gloves (8 - 16 oz)
Main feature: Fist protection
These boxing gloves are specifically designed for use during heavy bag training and as you become more advanced, 8-16 oz bag gloves could be your next purchase!
These have stiffer padding compared to training gloves and so are NOT suited for sparring.
There are two types of bag glove sizes.
The 8 – 12 oz sized boxing gloves are best suited to focus on lightness, technique, and speed.
The 14 – 16 oz sized boxing gloves are best for improving boxing endurance and conditioning on the bag.
The lighter gloves do have reduced padding that allows you to feel the impact of your punches and the lightness of the gloves means you can throw more punches with better technique.
These aid in the development of technique and accuracy of your punches.
However, their lighter nature also means they offer less hand protection, making them less safe for heavy-hitting punching bag sessions.
The heavier 14 – 16 oz sized bag gloves do offer more padding and so provide maximal fist protection when hitting the heavy bag.
The heavier nature also makes it great for training endurance and conditioning on the bag. However, this means that you’ll end up throwing less punches with proper technique. Since repetition is the key to muscle memory, it means your technique won’t improve as much compared to the lighter counterpart.
In general, bag gloves are great and getting 8 oz or 16 oz won’t really matter as long as you’re consistent with your heavy bag training.
However, I still think you should get them last if you’re on a tight budget and instead get a pair of training gloves first.
Bag Gloves Recommendation (Under $100)
RIVAL RB50 Bag Gloves
- Great Comfort
- Great Breathability
- Great Punch Feedback
- Great Wrist Support
- Fit Too Tight For Wraps/Big Hands
- Relatively Expensive
Sparring Gloves (14 - 18 oz)
Main feature: Safety
When it comes to sparring, safety is paramount.
Having safe gloves (for both you and your partner) is thus an absolutely must-have if you plan to exchange some punches!
If you want to spar, what you need is proper heavy sparring gloves.
Sparring gloves, typically range from 14 to 18 ounces and offer enhanced, softer padding and protection compared to training gloves.
The added weight reduces the speed of the punches and therefore the impact force on your training partner, while safeguarding your hands and wrists from injury.
Imagine if you hit someone’s elbow with a 10 oz glove!
You could break your hands and that’s what sometimes happens in boxing fights!
Sparring gloves protect you from that.
Sparring gloves mimic the feel of competition gloves while minimizing the risk of accidental injury during practice sessions.
If you want to do boxing sparring, it’s a MUST-HAVE.
I recommend them to anyone who wants to take boxing to the next level and do some sparring.
Sparring Gloves Recommendation (Under $100)
Ringside IMF Tech Hook & Loop Sparring Gloves
- Decent Comfort
- Decent Padding To Form Fist
- Thumb Placement Is Comfortable
- Mediocre Breathability
- Leather Quality Could Be Better
Competition Gloves (8 - 10 oz)
Main feature: Performance
The gloves you wear in the ring during a competition are vastly different from training gloves.
Competition gloves, usually between 8 and 10 ounces (although truly depending on what competition you participate in), are designed to prioritize speed and agility.
These gloves enable fighters to showcase their skills with swift punches and precise movements.
They are small, have little padding, and are truly dangerous.
Believe me, getting hit with 8 oz gloves is a completely different experience from getting hit with a 16 oz.
The difference is staggering.
Competition gloves, as the name suggests are meant mainly for competitions and fighting.
You would most likely not train with them.
As those gloves provide minimal padding, coaches only allow for them to be used in the actual fight to prevent unnecessary injury.
My Take On Competition Gloves
I am very much on the fence with the competition gloves.
Let me explain.
On the one hand, if you can have them and can afford them, it is good to have your own competition gloves.
From time to time, you can use them for training (not advising that too often) in order to test how they feel and how they behave. This can give you an edge and advantage before the fight!
You don’t want to wear competition gloves for the first time when you step into the ring, right?
So, it’s good to have them to get you used to them, see how they feel and potentially have your own gloves that you know well when you enter the ring.
Nonetheless, on the other hand, they are often expensive and you use them only when you fight.
Moreover, what is the biggest reason against buying them as a beginner–very often you cannot even use them in the fight!
Most amateur and pro competitions provide gloves.
So not only you do not need to have your own but often you cannot even use your own!
Amateur competition’s common rule is that all fighters have to fight in licensed competition gloves. If that happens, the expensive gloves you buy might be useless.
Competition Gloves Recommendation (Under $100)
Ringside Competition Safety Gloves
- Decent Comfort
- Decent Padding To Form Fist
- Thumb Placement Is Comfortable
- Mediocre Breathability
- Leather Quality Could Be Better
- Will Not Last Long
Old-School Speed Gloves (6-8 oz)
Main feature: speed
Besides the classic types of sizes and gloves that we outlined above, there is also a slightly less known type of gloves—speed gloves!
Those are gloves that are primarily made for and used for training speed. They are very light, offer very little padding and are made for just hitting fast.
Sometimes they look very similar to regular boxing gloves, some other times, they look like MMA gloves.
They are not as commonly used nowadays—although let me tell you something…
They are still very popular in the place I come from—Eastern Europe! In Eastern Europe, we still use them and rely on them heavily.
This might shock you… but in my opinion, they are a MUST-HAVE.
They are great for precision and speed training, are quite cheap, and can be even used for shadowboxing.
Being brought up in Eastern Europe, I have never had bag gloves but instead, speed gloves for my speedy combos on the bag or speeding exercises.
You can actually see me using them on our Instagram.
I’ve also seen many other Eastern European boxers such as Andrii Khotin use them!
Whether biased or not, I would take them. I would not recommend it if you have sensitive hands, however.
Speed Gloves Recommendation (Under $100)
TITLE Speed Bag Gloves
- Good Punch Feedback
- Decent Leather
- Not Expensive
- Low Protection
- Inner Part Won't Last Long
- Mediocre Wrist Support
Wrapping Up
So let’s briefly summarise everything I touched on in this article.
Boxing glove sizes are measured based on the weight of each boxing glove in ounces (oz) which can range from 6 oz to 24 oz, but boxers during their boxing training commonly use 12, 14, or 16 oz.
However, the size of boxing gloves you should get depends on your weight and gender. In general, the lighter you are, the less your boxing gloves weigh.
If you are a beginner or your budget is tight, consider getting a pair of training gloves that are sized between 12 – 16 oz. You can also get yourself speed gloves as they’re cheap, but that’s up to you.
If you want to start sparring, get yourself an extra pair of 14 – 16 oz sparring gloves.
Lastly, if you have a bigger budget, consider getting bag gloves that weigh between 8 – 16 oz. I would not recommend getting competition gloves especially if you’re a beginner.
Regardless of what sizes of boxing gloves you get, remember that selecting the right boxing glove size is crucial for optimizing your training, enhancing performance, and ensuring your safety.
Lastly, but most importantly…
Safety should always be your priority!
You should always wear appropriate gloves that ensure safety for you, your training buddies, and your opponents.
Keep that in mind.
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