G&S Sporting Goods WV super bag gloves

They only look purple; they're black.

I just received and worked out in my first pair of "real" boxing gloves. With some guidance from boxinggyms.com, I decided on the super bag gloves from G&S Sporting Goods, a NYC company with an impressive history, customer base, and much better prices than I could find for professional gloves anywhere else.

(The guy on the phone was a real NYer, with a thick accent. He wasn't afraid to make suggestions - helpful ones at that. Looks like they wrote out my order by hand, ran it on a hand-slide card machine, and then addressed the box (no packing material) by hand with a marker. I really like this "real people" touch. The only thing that gave me pause was when he asked, "Are these for you or someone else?" Who else would they be for? Oh - a son, a husband, a brother, of course. Whatever. I'm probably being overly sensitive.

So the gloves: they look well made, thanks to our Indian manufacturers. They have heavy velcro wristwraps. No matter what marketers say, altho it's obviously easier than laces, it's still challenging to take a glove off or put it on when your other hand is in one. And I'd like to see loops on the wrists to hang the gloves up in storage.

Due to the molded shape, knuckles stay flat, which helps in hitting head-on instead of the edge of the hand in a flurry. Leather makes such a satisfying SMACK sound on the bag. Rubber foam cushioning is thick indeed and dense, not puffy, so the gloves seem only as big as need to be, which, for someone my size (glove size 7), is plenty big enough. The medium was the perfect size for a snug fit over handwraps and tape, tho the wrist has a little play in it unless I wrap up onto the forearm for bigger circumference. Thumb is attached, which is pretty standard now.

They smell good.

What struck me most was the weight. At 12 oz., the gloves didn't seem heavy when I was toying with them, but it wasn't long into the work out before they got pretty heavy, and I felt slow. It wasn't until the end of my work out that I was beginning to get into the groove with them. I think this is exciting - I'm about to make gains, so I want to remember how heavy these feel right now. My shoulders felt worked at the end, which is nice. [ETA Adaptation was fast and this heaviness quickly became just a memory, but it is worth noting in case you're switching from cheap sports store gloves like I did.]

And the best part is - my hands haven't been getting nearly as injured as they had been in the cheap $29 gloves from the sports store. Bottom line - they're definitely worth it.

(around $45 - a real bargain for gloves of this quality - expect to pay $100 elsewhere)

Get a pair from G&S Sporting Goods