weight lifting gloves
Fitness

Weight Lifting Gloves: Did you consider the pros and cons?

Often people get confused about whether they should wear a pair of weight lifting gloves or not while working out at the gym. Particularly those who just joined a gym. They see their peers wearing those and they wonder if these can help with their work out. However, those who are already regular in the gym, have no confusion at all – some of them absolutely love those gloves consider as an essential work out accessory, on the other hand, some avoid those completely and claims that gloves are unnecessary interference to their work out. While both are true to some extent, neither of them completely understands the pros and cons of wearing a pair of gloves. Let’s take a close look so that you can make an informed decision.

weight lifting gloves

Grip

Nobody likes a sweaty hand while working out, specifically when lifting the weight. It’s normal to get sweaty hands though. But it can be dangerous. When you’re lifting heavy weight, your hands can get slippery and cause injury. A pair of weight lifting gloves can prevent that to happen. So, if your hands get sweaty, you should try weight lifting gloves to make that work out session safer by improving your grip on those heavyweights.

However, if your hands do not get sweaty, gloves can actually interfere with your natural workout stance. First, it gives you a false sense of strength while gripping that weight. You can test it yourself by lifting a weight with gloves and bare hands back to back, and you’ll realize that your grip is not as strong as you assumed while using gloves. Due to this false sense of grip strength, it increases the chance of injury. So, it’s advised to not use the gloves unless you really need them, like in the situation when you have sweaty hands.

If your hands are sweaty, but you still don’t want to use the gloves, you can try applying chalk to your bare hands to increase friction between your hands and weight. Lots of weight lifters prefer using chalk instead of gloves.

Calluses and Blisters

If you’re a long time weight lifter, then you must have faced those ugly calluses on your hand. And if you’re new to weight lifting, then you can’t forget those painful blisters. A small blister can make your hand useless for a day or two. Weight lifting gloves help to prevent those calluses and blisters. However, while gloves do definitely reduce the chance of callus formation, it won’t totally prevent it from occurring. Calluses can still appear even if you use weight lifting gloves

Pressure

Lifting heavy weight can put enormous pressure on your hand, a pair of Weight lifting gloves would help to relieve that pressure. It works the way on your hands as the suspension works for a car. Your chest muscles and back muscles are created such a way that they can bear much more weight, but if your bare hands can’t support that weight, then it can lead to injury. Weightlifting gloves give additional suspension to your hand to bear that pressure and support your hands to work in unison with your back and chest muscles.