If you've ever taken a boxing class, you'll know that it's really hard to uppercut a boxing pad if your gloves don't fit.
A boxing school out of Scarborough is trying to change that with a new kind of glove designed for fighting fists of all sizes.
Girls Just Wanna Box (GJWB), a program that runs out of the Mind-Set gym near Eglinton Town Centre, has just started selling their own line of polyurethane boxing gloves.
While there are American brands like Society Nine or Machina that do cater specifically to women, GJWB is one of the first lines with a range of sizes for both women and young girls, meaning gloves that weigh anywhere between 4 oz to 16 oz.
"Right now, brands like Adidas and Everlast have what they would call a female glove, but nothing is changed other than the colouring or the pattern itself," says Helene Jafine, a partner and coach at GJWB.
"So in terms of the fit, it's the exact same as the man's glove."
Over the last two years, Jafine and GJWB's founder Kristina Ejem have been developing and testing gloves with the students at GJWB's boxing classes, taking factors like bone structure and density into consideration.
"The biggest difference is the wrist and cuff, most [boxing gloves] are way too long for a female and go halfway up their arm...We've just tightened up everything to mould better to a woman's hand, which is typically smaller than a man's."
GJWB's gloves, which come in a eight different colours, have been tweaked in a few ways.
Gloves have been shortened, plus the space that spans the pointer finger and the pinky have been filled in with more padding. Excess space around the thumb area has also been reduced. There's also stronger velcro for additional wrist support.
On the inner wrist wrap is the text #ProtectThePretty: a hashtag Ejem coined as a play on the boxer's mantra of putting your hands up to protect your face. But it's less about aesthetics than encouraging women to take care of themselves by sleeping better and eating well.
Adult gloves, which typically weigh either 10 oz ro 12 oz depending on a fighter's weight and height, cost $130. Girls' gloves (typically around 6 to 8 oz) cost $65, with options to buy packs with a freshening spray.
The GJWB gym, which was first founded in 2014 out of the now-closed Clancy's Boxing Academy, now offers a boxing program called Lil Stars, which is designed for girls between the ages of 7 and 12.
"To start young and build up, that's the one thing that differentiates us," says Jaffine. "We want to teach women the technical sport of boxing, not just boxercise."
by Tanya Mok via blogTO
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