Not Just a Man's World

Hi.  My name is Ammi and I wear gloves when lifting.

In all likelihood I am going to get flamed and lose all remaining credibility for this confession, but I don’t care.

Reasons to wear gloves in the gym

I have one compelling reason to wear gloves in the gym in the winter which is the cold.  I’ve written before about how cold our gym gets in the winter.  Some days the bars are so cold that without gloves my hands go numb trying to do an exercise, which does nothing for my grip strength.

This affliction doesn’t seem to affect Chris who frequently tells me I ought to take them off and use chalk instead to get better performance.  However, Chris’s hands don’t turn white and blue and lose their feeling for no reason when he’s sat in a warm room reading a paper or driving the car.  Mine do.

Seems reasonable enough, but in the summer?

Ok.  Here’s the real confession.  I also wear gloves because, much as I’m proud to participate in a sport that the general public see to be a men’s sport, I still want to be feminine.  That means dressing up sometimes for a treat (to show off the figure that comes with lifting weights) and not having callouses that I’m picking off my hands all the time.

Sometimes a set of callouses can be a really good reminder of the hard work you put in when you’re in the gym.  In that sense I agree with all the glove-flamers out there.  But have you tried pulling on a pair of delicate nylon stockings or a silk top with calloused hands?  You’ll quickly find that your expensive garment is ruined with multiple threads pulled.

I have no wish to spend my life putting on cotton gloves just to get dressed up for a treat night out.

I also play the violin and a callous in the wrong place can play havoc with the touch senses in parts of my hands and subsequently make the instrument that little bit harder to really engage with.

Much-loved gym (cycling) gloves - old, grimy, stretched and in need of replacement

Disadvantages of gloves

Gloves have a couple of major disadvantages:

1. if they get damp or build up a layer of dirt and grease (eg. through sweat) it gets harder to grip the bar, whereas chalk can endlessly be reapplied to slimy hands; and
2. as they age, they stretch, and once they stretch you will find that you’re gripping a bar hard but the bar is moving within the loose glove.

The best solution is to keep your gloves clean. 

I’ll admit that I’m not good at this.  Usually my gloves don’t make it to the wash until they can be smelt from the next door room and could probably put themselves in the washing machine.  But I suffer for my laziness and find that I’m almost spinning round the pull up bar before I get the message and put my gloves in the wash.

Finding gloves

If you are going to get a pair of gloves then you want a pair that fits well and has some padding.

Don’t be fooled by just looking at weightlifting gloves.  Expand your horizons and hunt about in discount buckets at cycle shops too.  Road cyclists in particular are so often driven by the latest gear and must-have clothing that previous season gloves can often be picked up for bargain prices.

Cycling gloves have the benefit of a join between the middle two fingers which is handy for pulling them off when your hands are damp and have ended up glued into the gloves.  They are also often sold in smaller sizes.  My local sport’s clothing warehouse doesn’t sell weightlifting gloves that are small enough for me so I’ve always used cycling gloves (and therefore don’t know if weightlifting gloves also have the handy removal tab).

Fitting gloves

To fit gloves well, you will need to try a range of sizes.  Just because the pair you have just put on seem to fit, don’t stop there.  Try the size below as well.  You don’t want any space in the gloves or you’ll get slippage when gripping the bar (although you don’t want them so tight that they cut off the circulation when you bend your fingers either). 

I’ve found that I seem to fit best into children’s cycling gloves (ages 12 and 14) so don’t limit your hunting to the adult ranges.  In fact, if you’re in the UK and have petite women’s hands then children’s gloves come with the benefit of having no Value Added Tax (VAT) too. 

Excuse me while I now go and hide to avoid the backlash about glove-wearing…

Related posts:

1. Wearing gloves