Boxing Equipment for Beginners: Essential Items

Boxing was practiced by Ancient Greeks in 1500 BC and is one of the oldest martial arts. This popular stand-up fighting style can help you get fit, be used for self-defense, and has a wide range of benefits. So there is no wonder why a myriad of people want to learn it and get the most from their boxing sessions.

However, to learn and practice boxing you will need all the essential boxing equipment. Below, you can find these and understand why these are needed.

After these, you can find a few optional ones for people who are looking to get fit faster and increase fighting endurance which most starters should really work on.

Essential Boxing Equipment for Beginners

If you practiced any type of sport before, you should have shorts and shirts that allow you to do all the boxing moves. If you own them, let’s start with the most essential piece of equipment.

Boxing Gloves

Boxing gloves provide protection, air circulation for your hands so you can throw punch combinations without your hands getting sweaty. These need to have good construction to have long-lasting durability. If you are just a newbie,  you may not understand which boxing gloves you need. However, I will make it as simple as possible for you.

You need gloves for bag drills and sparring. There are bag gloves and sparring gloves for these as both training types require different qualities.

However, there are also training gloves that can be used for both sparring and bag workouts. These tend to have multiple layers of foam to distribute the shock well so it can protect your hands while hitting a bag and prevent your partner from getting injured while sparring.

Winning (All-Around Training Gloves)

Hand Wraps or Inner Gloves

A human hand has twenty-seven bones, twenty-seven joints, many muscle small groups, and it is not big at all. These are the reasons why our hands are delicate.

So, boxers simply need to look after them by wearing either inner gloves or hand wraps under boxing gloves to prevent hand injuries. These can protect your bones, joints, and ligaments from getting hurt, sprains, and fractures by holding them together.

Wraps absorb most of the moisture and sweat before they reach boxing gloves and this improves your punching performance as the gloves will not get progressively heavier during a drill. Thanks to this, boxing gloves will also last longer.

Boxing Shoes

Boxing shoes do not only provide support for ankles but also provide traction to improve the power behind punches and help you jump around with less effort. So you can definitely benefit from wearing a pair of boxing shoes that complement your movement style.

The gears below are used for sparring. These can reduce the impact of punches, falls and prevent sprains, cuts, and more. 

Related: Top 10 Best Boxing Shoes Review

Boxing Headgear

If you are willing to get in the ring and spar, boxing headgear becomes one of the most important pieces of boxing equipment for beginners or anyone. Because getting punched in the head can cause concussions and neuron damage. This is one of the main reasons why some elderly boxers have dementia earlier.

Depending on the design, boxing headgears can cover cheeks, forehead, chin, jaw and are built to prevent injuries by dispersing the impact. Also wearing non-slippery headgear, which does not decrease your vision a lot, is essential because it can help you defend against punches better by allowing you to see them.

Mouth Guard

Mouthguards should not be overlooked. Because it does not only prevent your tooth from getting knocked out but also reduces the likelihood of concussions just like headgear. Yeah, sometimes it can bother you but considering these, it is definitely a piece of essential equipment.

Read More: Best Boxing Mouth Guards >>

Groin Guard

These will protect you from shots to body parts that are not legal to punch during sparring sessions. Even though your partner doesn’t go full force if you don’t wear one, these low blows can cause a great deal of pain, and trust me you will get hit in these areas occasionally even if you do slow sparring and have a careful, reliable sparring partner.

Chest Protector

These protectors have ergonomic designs. Some protectors cover only your chest and some cover the abdominal area in addition to the chest and ribs. These have foam or dense padding to absorb the shock when you are hit in the chest repeatedly. These also should be comfortable enough that pad holders can continue training without suffering from blows and losing focus.

Heavy Bag, Freestanding bag

There are different styles of punching bags. The classic heavy bag is hung to a stand or a ceiling mount with a chain, s-hooks whereas freestanding bags don’t need any mounting hardware. However, both need to be filled with filling materials. These bags are needed boxing equipment for beginners to learn boxing basics, punches, and build a great physique.

The bag syle does not matter at first so you can purchase either a freestanding or hanging one. However, the heavier weights are for stronger, advanced boxers who have enough punching power and punching skills to have efficient workouts with heavier bags. So depending on your skill and fitness level, you can pick one. Most beginners will do just fine with classic heavy bags that weigh between 50 and 80 pounds.

Speed Bag Platform, Double End bag

These tools are also very important to learn boxing. Even though compared to a heavy bag, both of these are relatively harder to learn and build up a rhythm, these improve a wide range of boxing skills like accuracy which you can’t even work on with other tools.

The circular drum of the speed bag platform should be thick enough and should be made of quality wood so it can absorb the shock and be able to provide balanced, quick rebounds.

Also, choosing the right type of double end bag is crucial. Because a particular bag may not be suitable for your goals. For example, some double end bags are perfect for increasing speed as these bags rebound quickly whereas some are slimmer and you can practice deflecting attacks but these may not be ideal for practicing all boxing punches.

Large speed bags and double end bags are easier to hit and perfect boxing equipment for starters.

Punch Mitts

You need to have a trainer who knows how to hold these so you can develop punching skills, speed up reaction time. Genuine leather, well-stitched mitts are highly resistant to wear and tear. So these tend to outlast their synthetic counterparts.

Skipping Rope

Even though it is not necessarily a piece of boxing equipment, it teaches you how to move efficiently in the ring, increases hand-foot coordination. So beginner boxers and even some intermediate boxers can benefit from it as many of them tend to lack these basic skills. 

Mats, Flooring

Floors of boxing gyms are suitable for boxing training but the floors of your own home don’t allow you to drag your foot properly. The ground also may not be suitable for pivoting. So the chances are it will not allow maximum power transfer, and you might even slip and fall. Thus definitely invest in boxing mats and have enough training space to throw advanced combinations.

Also, make sure that the mats have slip resistant design which is a pattern with a lot of small lines and it should have at least 0.5-inch thickness to absorb the impact as much as possible.

Optional Boxing Equipment

Punch Trackers

These are generally placed in wraps and track how many punches you throw in a certain amount of time. Some of the latest products can even measure how fast you throw them! It can be useful to track how hard you train because I know people generally pay more attention to boxing techniques, movements, and instructions when they are accountable.

Training Mask

Do you like training in the mountains? I actually do and this helps to increase athletic performance. But not everyone is willing to spend time in the mountains or at high altitudes. This is why many boxers prefer wearing training masks as these mimic the hypoxic condition of training at high altitudes so you can experience those benefits without even leaving your boxing gym.

Note: Even though there are new boxing systems with gimmicky features, which promise you to fast-forward the progress of learning boxing with interactive drills, you don’t really need them.

So now you know what equipment you exactly need for boxing and why you need them. Also, definitely choose these carefully as training with good and protective gear not only helps you learn boxing more efficiently but also can reduce the risk of injuries during training whether it is sparring or standard bag drills.

Shortly, buying good boxing equipment for beginners is crucial for learning, developing boxing skills, and safety. Thus, make sure to learn and practice the sweet science with them.