How To Clean & Make Your Boxing Hand Wraps Last

Take care of your tools (especially your boxing equipment!), and your tools will take care of you. It's a simple piece of advice, but one not many people like to follow. When it comes to boxing and kickboxing, taking care of your equipment, most importantly your hands, should be a priority. Beyond that, you should also take care of your other boxing equipment--your boxing gloves, shoes, clothes, and boxing hand wraps.

Today, FightCamp Trainer Shanie Smash will walk you through some tips on how to maintain and clean your traditional and quick hand wraps. Keeping them clean and disinfected is crucial to making your boxing gloves last longer. Plus, keeping them clean will do your fellow gym go-ers a favor, because let's be honest, no one wants to be the smelly gal or guy at their gym!

Key Tip: Invest in a few pairs of nice, high-quality hand wraps. This way, you can have multiple pairs to last you a few days before having to run a load of laundry, and as we mentioned before, don't be cheap when investing in good wraps!

How To Care For Your Hand Wraps

Step 1: Pre-Washing Care

Ideally, the goal to keep your hand wraps clean would be to wash them right away after putting in a solid workout. However, if you don't have enough clothes to wash, or it’s only your first pair of wraps, you can still help minimize bacteria build-up (which generates the smell) even without immediate washing. Here’s how...

• Lay your hand wraps out to dry so that the sweat can dry up and the wraps don't retain moisture

• Once your wraps fully dry out, put them in the laundry for your next load

Step 2: Use a Garment Bag

One of the key tips for washing hand wraps is to invest in an affordable, washable garment bag--you can find some online for under $10. Using a garment bag will help ensure your hand wraps don't get tangled or wrapped around the washing machine agitator. This will help save you time trying to untangle the knotted mess. (You know when your wired earbuds get all tangled? This is what can happen to your hand wraps--we all know how annoying and frustrating that can be!). Plus, this will also prevent the Velcro from catching on and potentially damaging other items in the washing machine.

Step 3: Close the Garment Bag

• This may seem like a no-brainer, but make sure to actually zip, seal, or tie close the garment bag that you use

• Then, once it is all closed up, toss it in the washing machine for cleaning

Extra Tip: To really help with overwhelming odor smells, add about ½ cup of white distilled vinegar to the last rinse cycle to help eliminate deep-set, stuck-on odors. Be sure not to mix it in with laundry soap as it can cause staining!

Step 4: Drying the Hand Wraps

After washing, Shanie prefers to let her hand wraps air dry. She feels this is the easiest way to get them untangled. However, if you are in a time crunch, you can toss them in the dryer and set it to tumble dry low.

Step 5: Roll Up the Dried Hand Wraps

Sticking with the theme of taking care of your boxing equipment, once dried, don't just ball up your hand wraps and toss them in your gym bag--roll them up so they don't get tangled.

• For traditional hand wraps, make sure to start so the bottom side of the wrap is facing in, so once you’re finished, the velcro is on top and you can secure the rolled up wraps

Key Tip: When rolling up the wraps, make sure to smooth out all the wrinkles so they look clean and presentable.

Quick Wraps Care

Lastly, follow all the exact same steps for taking care of your quick wraps. The only main difference with quick wraps is that the process will be much faster as you do not have to worry about them getting too tangled.

When Is It Time to Get a New Pair of Boxing Hand Wraps?

Over time, just like anything that is used consistently, normal wear and tear happens. For your hand wraps, maybe the velcro starts to wear out, or the vinegar trick just isn't doing its job anymore eliminating the odors. If you start to notice some of these problems, it may be time to invest in a new pair. FightCamp has high-quality boxing hand wraps available--both traditional wraps and quick wraps. Check out our boxing equipment accessories to find your next pair--or get a few extra pairs so you aren’t doing laundry every day!

Take Care of Yourself and Your Boxing Equipment

Beyond just taking care of your boxing hand wraps, we have more information and tips on how to take care of your other at-home boxing equipment, plus boxing and kickboxing workouts for beginners and advanced fighters. The FightCamp Blog is your number one resource for boxing and kickboxing training and information. Keep at your at-home boxing journey, and if you have questions, be sure to reach out to our trainers, Shanie included, in the FightCamp Community.