Boxers and martial art fighters have reasons they wrap their hands before any training. But why and how to wrap your hands for boxing? This article will provide you 8 easy steps.
To a seasoned boxer, a good hand wrap should achieve two things – First, to protect the hands and provide the necessary support for the wrist and knuckles so you can train comfortably when you’re boxing or doing Muay Thai workouts.
Secondly, If the wrap is well-executed, it will not only secure the fists and knuckles but also allow the fighter to punch with strength and will not hurt his bones and joints and should be able to prevent injury to his hands.
Mastering a quality hand-wrap can be very challenging at first. Still, when done correctly, the confidence it gives a fighter knowing he will be injury-free and ability to punch with great strength is vital.
These hand-wrap instructions explain how you can adequately wrap your hands when you are about to start your boxing workouts.
Boxers are prone to wrist injury if their hands are not adequately wrapped; that is why they wrap their hands before any practice or competition.
The hand wrapping methods described here will boost any boxer’s confidence.
The techniques will be useful for athletes preparing for intense sparring sessions or for anyone just wanting to be in shape during a cardio kickboxing workout. The methods highlighted here could also be used by both kickboxers and Muay Thai fighters.
Why Wrap Your Hands?
The hand-wrap is a technique that every boxer or martial arts fighters can’t do without. It’s an essential prerequisite to their training sessions.
You don’t feel comfortable with your boxing gloves if these wraps are not there or are not correctly covered. The hands have so many small joints and small bones that could easily get fractured from the impact of repeated punches – more reason why boxers have to protect their hands with a good hand wrap.
The hand wraps are meant to provide your hands the supports it needs. So you can have a successful training when sparring with a partner or when hitting a heavy bag.
However, to some people, hand wraps are to add an extra layer of cushion to your knuckles when, in fact, it is the boxing gloves that does precisely that. The boxing gloves are meant to add additional layers of cushion to your hands for more solid protection against injury.
The real reason you see experience boxers using the hand wraps is mainly to hold together all the hand’s loose joints and the moveable bones.
The hand wraps help fasten these bones and joints together so that the shock on your punches is evenly spread across the entire hand. It could be horrible when you hit the bags with loose joints as it can cause fracture if you allow your joints to move freely in their direction.
If you allow your hands to loose when you are punching a bag or when you are sparring with a partner, you can quickly get your hands to collapse over one another, and so can easily break.
Even if you are fortunate to have your fingers intact, you shouldn’t risk a hand injury that may happen as a result of not adequately wrapping your hands correctly.
How to Wrap Your Hands for Boxing
There are different types of hand wraps; however, the excellent length of them all is the 180″, and if you have a smaller hand, you can make do with the 120″. The ‘Mexican Wraps’ made with semi-elastic is much favored among athletes because of its comfort and performance. Any thick inelastic hand wraps should be avoided as they do not offer the same level of comfort and performance.
Here are the processes needed to wrap your hands before any training or competition.
Step 1: Find a Good Quality Hand Wrap
Your best hand-wrap should be one of good quality and with the right length. There are different types of hand wraps being offered in the marketplaces, but not all of them are made with the most excellent quality.
Also, do not substitute your comfort and performance with a cheap hand wraps all because you want to save money. To choose a quality hand wraps to go with hand wraps made by recognized brands like Everlast, Winning and RDX.
Step 2: Wrap Your Thumb
You need to have an understanding of how the wrap is enclosed on your thumb. You need to attach your thumb in the wrapped loop, which starts from one end of the cover. Do not turn the wraps upside down when you begin, or you won’t be able to close the wrap when you are closing the wrap or done with the wrapping process.
Step 3: Start With Wrist
Wrap your wrist with plenty of wraps (loop). Note that the amount of wrap you loop over your hand may differ from one person’s hand to another. Bigger hands may need more extra wraps, while smaller hands may not need too much of wraps.
Step 4: Wrap Your Thumb
Let the wrist have 3-5 wraps, then switch to the thumb and hold it firmly with few more wraps. Make sure you give some breather to the thumb (don’t wrap/cover the whole thumb) while going through this stage. After wrapping your thumb, switch back to the wrist once more for a final single wrap.
Step 5: Wrap Your Hands
After you finish with wrapping your hand completely, start doing the same with the palms and the back of your hands. You need to be a little careful while going through this stage of hand-wrapping and make sure your hands are stretched when performing these wraps.
Step 6: Make an ‘X’
Once you’re done with wrapping the palms, the next is to try and make an ‘x’ wrap around your hand. This can take 2-3 wraps. You can achieve the ‘x’ shape wrap when you wrap the back of your hand behind the thumb and make a crisscross between your fingers. This makes your grips to be firm and also keeps your knuckles separate.
Step 7: Wrap Your Knuckles
Next is to wrap your knuckles securely. Be sure you don’t wrap them too tight as it will disturb your hand from fitting comfortably into your gloves. This is one of the essential wrap processes because your knuckles are the most prone to injury, especially when you throw punches.
Step 8: Wrap Your Hands Again
Sometimes when you finish wrapping, you still have some wraps left. If this happens, all you need to do is wrap it once again to the back of your hand for added protection and support.
Tips
- When you’re wrapping your hands, make sure you keep them flat and stretched.
- Make sure to use a clean wrap all the time to avoid stiffness.
- For those with smaller hands, it’s best to purchase a shorter boxing wraps. If you use a regular wrap, it will bunch up inside the gloves, which can make it difficult to control the gloves.
Warning
Do not wrap your hand too tightly. When you wrap it too tightly, you are likely to cut off the blood circulation to your wrists and fingers. If you noticed that your feel numb inside the gloves or they are not too comfortable when you wear the gloves, then take off the wraps. And this time wrap your hand a bit loose. Wrapping your hand is a way to support the hand and the wrist. You should be careful not to stop the blood flow to these regions.
These above steps should get your hands well wrapped for your next sparring session or bag hits. Also, while performing these steps, make sure there are no wrinkles in your wraps. Your wrists and hands need to be stretched during the wrapping stages.
Conclusion
Clearly there is no right way to wrap your hands as there are many styles of wrapping. It all has to do with personal preferences and what you need to protect your hands from sustaining an injury. The hand wraps are specially designed to protect the 29+ small bones that turn into a fist. However, there is a wrong way to wrap. Never wrap your hands too tightly so you wouldn’t cut off your circulation, which can trigger bad things to happen. Your wraps should make your fist very comfortable to clench and must also feel good inside a boxing glove.
