Okay so it’s not a blog to set your hair alight but I just got back from offshore yesterday and I had a couple of parcels waiting for me like Christmas presents – plus I need a couple of days rest before I carry on with my training so I thought why not write this?
I love the process of wrapping your hands. Like Johnny says on his ExpertBoxing website – wrapping your hands is the 5-10 minute ritual where any office worker, athlete or school kid transforms into a boxer.
You wrap your hands to protect the small bones in your hands so it’s very important you wrap your hands correctly. This wrapping your hand guide on ExpertBoxing is the only one I use (apparently recommended by Pepper Roach – Freddie Roach’s brother of Wildcard Boxing Gym)
I’ve been mainly using these wraps from Adidas while I was offshore, 4.5m long which is like 15ft.
Really nice material with a little bit of stretch. Much nicer material than the ones made by RDX. I was training everyday with these for the last 5 weeks and they were washed every day too. The only problem was that after 5 weeks, I found the velcro was wearing and it was losing its stickiness.
I ordered these VL-B wraps by Winning and their knuckle protectors while I was away and tried them on just now:
You just wrap over the knuckle protectors but it feels really good. The Winning wrapping is much thinner than the Adidas type and it resembles the tape and gauze wrap that you see professionals using. It’s very fine though and it was a touch more fiddly to keep the wrap straight when I was making my turns. The Winning wrap is longer than 4.5m but you need that extra length.
My hand felt great though and it felt really good inside my glove. I’ve never used additional padding on my knuckles before but I was putting a lot of time into the bag work and I may start using this more.
The Winning wrap and the protectors are washable and re-useable unlike the gauze and athletic tape that pros use. I’ve never used the gel gloves or wrapped over these but Gary, my trainer, doesn’t recommend them. I don’t know if anyone out there has tried gel gloves and wants to comment. These knuckle protectors may be a happy medium.
Washing hand wrap is still a nightmare to untangle from the rest of your laundry and NEVER, EVER buy red hand wrap! The colour will just run and stain your other laundry in your washing machine. I’d stick to black, white or yellow.
A Southpaw Swan 
Nice summaries. It’s also interesting to hear about the knuckle protector, that’s not something we’ve seen people using before.
We’ve reviewed a few hand wraps in the Accessories section of our website which might interest you, including a pair of Gel wraps by RDX
As for washing, I’ve not personally had a problem with washing my red wraps, but it does all depend on the quality of the wrap, and might not be worth the risk. If you want them to stop getting tangled, look for some sort of washable mesh bag or pouch. Keeps them all contained but still washes them as well as if they were loose. Such a timesaver.
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The mesh bag idea is awesome – I never thought of that! I normally have 2 pairs but if I get 2 bags, I can separate them because trying to split 4 of them up, afterwards is a nightmare. Especially if they are all the same colour.
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I used gel hand wraps for a while but the support on the wrist just wasn’t there I found I was hitting lighter because of this so switched back to the adidas ones.
I also have a mesh bag for washing my wraps. After the first few times of having all my clothes tangled up in wraps it’s a god send.
Keep up the good work.
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I have the inner gloves and I like them. My hands are so small that wrapping takes a while and I have to be very mindful because the wraps can even be a little wide for me to wrap myself. I’ve given myself blisters from wraps.
I like the convenience of the inner glove. But I miss the mental prep that comes with wrapping.
As for washing – ask your wife for tricks and tips for washing bras. The same tips will apply to wraps – like mesh cages.
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Thanks Sylvia. That mesh bag idea was a good one. I never thought of that until you and a few other people mentioned it to me. Interesting what you say about the wraps giving you blisters though. My hands are small for a guy but I never thought about how it affects people with even smaller hands.
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Have you found, especially on the heavy bag, that you can find a zen zone where you know you’re wearin yourself out but you can still push, and do? – that’s when I’ve blistered. I go too far and the wraps chafe.
Theoretically you should also be able to braid wraps together when washing them.
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I’ve got to admit Sylvia – I haven’t found that Zen-like zone just yet! 🙂 I was on that boat training twice a day with not enough sleep and there was one day where I was exhausted and I knew as soon as I started hitting that heavy bag that I had very little left in the tank 🙂 – there was another day when my knuckles were aching slightly. I think I may have been tired and didn’t make a strong/correct fist.
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