Wearing gloves while working out has always been controversial. While some feel that wearing protective equipment interferes with your workout regime, others think that such gears protect your palms from ripping open. They also prevent you from getting a wound that would keep you from working out. There also are others that believe that the extra width of gloves activates more muscle groups.
Truth is, there are some pros and cons to wearing gloves to the gym. Let’s find out if wearing gym gloves weaken or improve your grip.
Weaken or Improve Your Grip –
Grip Performance
Whether you should use gloves to improve grip performance depends on the kind of exercise you are doing. If you are holding on to weight, such as dumbbells or barbells, then gloves can offer a lot. Most men would agree that the grip on the metal surface of the weight becomes slick because of sweat. Wearing gloves can keep you holding on to the weight a lot more effectively, and improve posture because you are not struggling to hold on.
Good workout gloves are specially designed with a special fabric to optimize weightlifting.
However, if you are holding thicker bars, in that case, it can be more difficult to get a good grip because the padded gloves reduce the surface area that you can grab in your palms. Open palms will have a much better grip on thicker bars.
If you are doing pulling exercises, like pull-ups or deadlifts, in that case, a workout glove is a bad idea. It does not help your grip and limits how much weight you can lift without slipping off. Your muscles may hold on for a lot longer, but your grip will give up quickly because it does not offer the same level of resistance as your skin.
Wrist Protection
Some brands offer Velcro-ed bands that can give you additional wrist support. Wrists are highly susceptible to injuries like sprains. Gloves can provide an extra layer of protection from the strain that is caused by lifting heavyweights.
Some people also use wrist bands for existing injuries that you have to tightly wrap around the wrist. When you use gloves with wrist guards, you won’t have to worry about healing from damages because you are preemptively preventing injury.
Calluses
Calluses are a badge of honor to many fitness enthusiasts. However, you will always see a group of people who would go to any length to prevent calluses from forming.
Calluses can be rough and slowly form over the years to a point that you could even lose some feelings in certain areas. Whereas that will help you hold on to heavyweight for a lot longer, it’s also can form into injuries that are extremely difficult to heal.
Gloves don’t offer a lot of protection from that, to be honest. Some people think wearing gloves gives them a free pass to use an incorrect technique, and end up using wrong gripping techniques that can cause calluses on a much worse scale.
Gloves can be comfortable. They protect your arm. If you are careful and don’t lift too heavily, gloves will protect you from getting injured or forming calluses. However, no study has proven that gloves can significantly alter exercise outcome drastically. But it is safe to say, if you are using gloves, you can at least be comfortable when pulling weight.