Boxing is a challenging yet fulfilling contact sport that is not for the fullish at heart. There are a couple of rules you need to follow to ensure your safety and have an amazing boxing experience.
If you want to get into boxing but don’t want to cut down your beautiful nails, this is the ultimate guide for you. Here I will talk about a few downsides and explain safety measures to avoid any injury while boxing.
Can you Do Boxing with Long Nails?
You can do boxing with long nails as long as you’re wearing proper protective gear. Long nails are quite dangerous and introduce a risk of serious damage. It’s recommended to trim them short because they interfere with your movements and makes specific techniques much more complicated to perform.
Similar to jewelry and other accessories, nails (either natural or acrylic) are not essential for boxing. It may get in your way and create unexpected challenges while training.
Can You Wear Boxing Gloves with Long Nails?
You can wear boxing gloves with long nails as long as you’re comfortable with them and they are not interfering with the gloves’ padding from inside. Generally, it is recommended to keep your nails clean and short to avoid any unexpected complexities during your boxing training.
Further in this article, I will also touch upon different tricks to ensure your safety and a couple of advantages you get as a boxer by keeping your nails longer.
How Do You Do Boxing with Long Nails?
In a world where it’s wildly accepted to have short nails, there is a small community of people who are obsessed with their beautiful nails. (P.S. I’m not talking about you 🙂 )
Here’re some of the easy-to-follow and helpful ways to avoid painful accidents and protect your nails during your boxing training or matches.
1. Get Ready with Proper Protective Gears
This is a no-brainer, right? Having a good pair of quality boxing gloves along with nice boxing wraps is essential if you want to protect your nails.
To go one step ahead and ensure your maximum safety, you can also use special boxing gloves that are specifically designed for long nails. But those gloves are relatively expensive and might not offer the best protection to your arm.
That’s why I suggest you to wear wraps around your nails and try practicing a couple of moves without hitting your nails.
2. Apply Gel Polish on Nails
I talk to one of my female boxer friends about this and it’s actually true.
Many boxers wear nail polish when they are boxing to help toughen their nails against the impact of solid punches. Gel polishes make nails relatively stronger so they will not chip, giving them a fighting chance against breakage.
You can also apply some good quality hand cream before and after your boxing training that keeps your hands and nails hydrated and ensure their rigidity. Just avoid petroleum-based products because they can damage your nails over time.
Although most of the gel polishes last for up to twelve days, but over time, it does affect you and can cause your nails to peel weakening them.
3. Choosing Press on Nails
If you have any event where you want to show off your long and beautiful nails, you can go with simple press-on nails instead of those expensive acrylic nail extensions.
Press-on nails cost you almost half of the regular acrylic nails and work on the basis of stick and peel technology. It doesn’t involve any harsh glue and can be applied by anyone anywhere.
This way you can trim your actual nails, rock the boxing ring, and wear these press-on extensions two days before your exciting event!
Also Read: Are Everlast Boxing Gloves Good?
Downsides of doing Boxing with Long Nails
Even though keeping your nails short and clean is not a hard-n-fast rule in boxing, It’s important to understand why almost all boxing trainers recommend keeping short nails. Here’re the two most critical disadvantages of keeping long nails as a boxer:
1. Long Nails can Hinder your Abilities
There is no doubt that you can do boxing with long nails. But there are high chances that your long nails might hinder your abilities or can cause technique impairment.
In boxing, there are few necessary movements where you have no option but to learn them and carry them out in the correct form. Long nails not only interfere with your techniques but also makes it very complicated for you to perform some simple movements.
For Example:
Keeping your fist tight and rigid is very important to deliver an accurate and impactful punch. But, how you’re going to clinch your fist with long nails?
Basically, by keeping long nails, you’re compromising on the number of different attacking and defensive moves you have.
If you try to preserve your long, beautiful nails, it might force you to use more of open-hand attacking techniques and restrict your potential to learn the complete essence of boxing.
2. Long Nails during Boxing can be Dangerous
This is another and one of the main reasons why it is always recommended to keep your fingernails short. Boxing is already a quite dangerous combat sport and by introducing long nails, you’re making it even worse for you as well as your opponent boxer.
A solid punch with sufficient force and a long enough nail can hurt someone very badly. Also, we can’t ignore the chances of stabbing those nails into your own palm.
By keeping your nails short, you eliminate one more potential source that can cause some serious injury. It not only avoids the painful risks of nail breaking during your boxing training but also ensures you don’t hurt yourself and others around you.
With that being said:
Let’s take a look at the other side of the coin:
Advantages of having Long Nails for Boxing
Apparently, having long nails also have some benefits for boxing. Let see:
Many people think that having long nails provides them with greater surface area and helps them for gripping. As a result, they are able to deliver relatively more power through their punch.
Along with that, some people also think that we can use long nails as an extension of our arms. This not only helps us to increase our reach but also makes it difficult for our opponent boxers to deliver an effective punch.
To be completely honest with you, I never grew my fingernails long nor have any plans for it. So, I have no idea whether or not these are practical advantages.
The only thing I can think of is, having long nails during your initial phase of boxing raining kind of forces you to be more precise with your offense techniques. And this extra care translates into a better form and more power over time.
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4 Tips to Prevent Nail Breakage while Boxing
Although I already touched upon some tips to protect your nails, here’re four more:
- Eat biotin-rich food items like cooked eggs or legumes that provide you with Vitamin H and Vitamin B-7. It will help you to naturally strengthen your nails and hair.
- Avoid using the standard nail polish remover that comes with acetone, because it can significantly damage your nails.
- The best way to care for your nails, in fact, your whole body is by drinking plenty of water and keeping yourself hydrated throughout the day.
- Well-trimmed fingernails reduce the risk of painful breakage in the middle of the boxing match.
My Final Thoughts
I hope you get a clear idea about the long-term consequences of long nails and how they can affect your boxing performance.
Definitely, you can use specific protective equipment and take other preventive measures to make your way but honestly, the best thing to do is to cut down your nails and keep them clean, especially if you want to take boxing seriously in your life.
Long nails are vulnerable, distracting, and potentially dangerous for you as well as your opponent during your whole match. Happy Boxing!
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