How Hand Wraps Protect Your Hand in Boxing

A hand wrap, also known as a wrist wrap is a strip of cloth used in various contact sports. It, however, was popularized by boxers. It offers lots of protection to your wrist and the hands.

When it is wrapped tightly around the base of your thumb, palm, and wrist, your wrist and hands are protected.

However, that’s not all it does. Let’s check them out.

They Help Stabilize the Wrist

The wrist is a very fragile part of the hand. Although it does not exactly seem fragile, it could easily get injured in a fistfight or during training. When you wrap your hands with a hand wrap, it will keep your wrist protected from injuries while in a fist fight.

Hand wraps provide a much needed layer of protection for the wrist. To give the wrist the proper level of protection with a hand wrap, such wrap has to be tight so as to keep the wrist from experiencing hyperextension.

Now, it is perfectly okay to give your wrists the freedom of undergoing hyperextension while you carry out regular activities, the same cannot be said about boxing or taking part in other fist fights both during training and in competitions. During a boxing fight or training, your wrists should be stable. With a stable wrist, you will not need to deal with excessive extension or flexion that could occur when your punch angle is awkward or when you make use of poor form.

As you become a more skillful boxer, the risks of the wrists being extended or flexed excessively will reduce greatly. Nonetheless, they could still get injured. Therefore, you need a hand wrap to keep your wrists protected regardless of your skill level.

Hand Wraps Help Your Hand Fill Your Gloves

The same way your shoes need to have a perfect fit, your boxing gloves should also have the right fit. This will offer your hand the right level of protection.

Boxing gloves are designed to fit perfectly. If there is room for your hand palm to wriggle in your boxing gloves, you could get injured when your hand contacts a surface in a fist fight. Without the right fit, each time you punch, your palm will slide in the gloves.
Going by this, hand wraps are to your hand what socks are to your shoes. So, the same way socks protect your feet when in shoes, hand wraps keep your hands protected in gloves. With hand wraps worn under your gloves, you can achieve a perfect fit which in turn leads to a lot of stability.

Hand wraps are so important that as soon as you train with them a couple of times, you will never get to train without them.

Hand Wraps Protect Your Knuckles

Punching no doubt inflicts pain on people’s faces. Nonetheless, when you punch your opponent, you are not free from pain. You could feel a great degree of pain in your knuckles. While this is supposed to be normal, you can avoid any form of pain in your knuckles by wrapping your knuckles with hand wraps.

Intense pain on the knuckles do not only make it difficult to keep punching, they also make it impossible to train for a fairly long period. It is bad enough that punching or training without hand wraps can cause you to feel a lot of pain in your knuckles; However, it is not all that may happen, your knuckles could get fractured and you will have to stay away from physical activities for a couple of weeks.

With your hands wrapped properly, you will be able to train for long periods without being scared of any pain or fracture to your knuckles.

Hand Wraps Keep Your Fingers from Driving into Your Palm

A lot can happen to the palm when you throw a punch the wrong way. One of these many occurrences is the finger can drive into the palm. Although this happens in extreme conditions, you can prevent it from taking place by wrapping your hands with hand wraps.

They Prevent Unwanted Movements in the Thumb

Punches can be made from lots of angles and these could cause unwanted movements in the thumb. This is perfectly normal anatomically. It, can, however, be prevented by wearing hand wraps

The Hand’s Anatomy

To fully understand the role of a hand wrap in keeping the hand and wrist safe, it is important that you understand the anatomy of the hand.

In fact, the hands are made up of 27 bones. They are not big and also allow motion in various directions. Due to this, humans are able to carry out different movements and also take part in different activities. The wrist is made up of eight carpal bones and there are five metacarpal bones at the center of the hand. These metacarpals are attached to at least one carpel.

Every metacarpal is also attached to your phalange bone. The phalanges are made up of three bones each. Only the thumb is free from this structure. It has just two sets of bones. Your phalanges, metacarpals, and carpals alongside the ligaments and tendons give your hand its appearance.

Conclusion

It is impossible for boxers to train or take part in competitions without putting on the right boxing gloves. That, however, is not all they need. Hand wraps are also important during training or competitions.
During boxing, your hands keep making direct impacts with objects. These could be physical opponents or very heavy punching bags. This affects people across all areas and levels of physical combat. Although lots of people assume the injuries associated with boxing only affects inexperienced boxers.

Finally, this notion, however, is false. The more skillful you become and the stronger your punches, the more likely you are to get injured without a hand wrap.

Frequently Asked Question (FAQ)

Q: Can I wear a boxing glove without a hand wrap?

Answer: The consequences will be severe. You may damage your knuckles or your wrist fighting without a hand wrap.