Muay Thai Boxing Equipment Article
The Best Way To Protect Your Hands For Muay Thai Kickboxing Is To Wrap Them...But Only If You Know How To Do It Right
The best way to protect you're hands from injury if your going to hit something is with hand wraps... not with gloves. As a beginner in Muay Thai you have more chance of damaging your wrist than your fingers or knuckles. This is why it is more important to buy hand wraps before you get gloves.
Hand wraps are long strips of cloth made from cotton and look similar to bandages. They have a loop at one end to hook over your thumb and velcro at the other to attach it to your wrist. They are a couple of inches wide and several metres in length (they vary).
There are many different ways to wrap your hands and no way is right or wrong. There are just a few rules you should adhere to because wrapping wrong can be worse than no wraps at all.
Firstly the concept behind wrapping is that there are small bones in the hand and wrist and big bones in the forearm. You want to attach the smaller/weaker bones of the hand to the bigger/stronger bones of the forearm.
Secondly, the wraps should be tight enough so that when you hit something they don't fall off, but loose enough so that they don't cut off the circulation of blood to the fingers. The test I use that works is that when your hand is in a fist the wraps should pull tight around your hand and feel snug. When you relax your hand the wraps are no longer tight but not falling off either.
Thirdly, don't wrap the little fingers. I know there are many people out there who do this but just take it from me when I say it increases your chance of breaking your finger. The forces involved just pull the pinky in such a way that any force directly on it could break it.
The video here shows two different ways of wrapping for muay thai kickboxing training and competition but they are by no means the only way or the right way for you. You have to experiment to find out the best pressure for your wrap and to find a wrapping style that you like. Just don't hit the muay thai pads or bags without them.
http://www.youtube.com/v/dVMLwP5wzyQ
