What To Do If Your Fingers Are Sore After Punching

Having one or another part of your body feeling sore here and there isn’t uncommon in such a grueling sport even for more advanced fighters, but the things get more serious when we talk about our hands.

Hands definitely need the most care if you want to prolong your career as much as possible, but what about finger soreness? What are the reasons for such occurrence, and how do you deal with it?

The gloves

Personally i think that the usual reason for getting sore fingers during or after some form of punching, like the heavy bag, mitts or such, is using one pair of gloves for all the activities.

If you do a lot of bag work and then decide to spar with the same pair of gloves, you can definitely put a lot more strain on your fingers as the padding gets more tough. What i suggest is getting two pairs of good training gloves, i like these Title ones off Amazon (link) and they shouldn’t break your budget.

In case that you do everything correctly, they might still cause considerable pain to your fingers if they’re simply too large or small, so make sure to get the right size!

Lastly, new pair of gloves are known to cause some discomfort to your hands at first, but after some time they should break in and fit them just right.

Wrapping your hands

Another reason for sore fingers, especially after hitting the punching bag, is either not wrapping your hands at all or doing so improperly.

It’s common to see people who do some type of recreational boxing training, like at home, not using any type of wrapping underneath. Hand wraps are crucially important to use at any time you put your gloves on, as they help in preventing far more than just sore fingers.

You could also be doing it plain wrong. If you train in a gym, tell your trainer to judge how well you wrap your hands, and if it’s not right, he should obviously show you how do get it done the right way.

Not all of us train in a gym and have a luxury of an experienced supervisor, so video demonstration like this should suffice:

Also, i highly suggest using the longer type of hand wraps, 180 inch (457 cm) ones to be exact. The extra material will provide more padding to your hands, which could alone prevent any future soreness. Here’s a link for ones you can buy online.

Make sure that the wraps are neither too tight or loose. Securing your hands overly tight can constrict the blood flow, and doing so too light can make them rub around a lot, which can all make your fingers sore when wearing gloves or after taking them off.

More protection to your fingers can be provided with the help of knuckle pads – they go under the hand wraps, and because they cover a bit of your actual fingers, they can also help with the problem.

First punches, new-found pain

Repeatedly hitting things with your fists over and over again isn’t really the type of thing they were designed for to begin with.

Hands condition to this type of use after training for a longer time, so the soreness you feel in your fingers could be happening purely because of this reason.

The good old technique

Whether you strike correctly or not is oftentimes the main culprit of many injuries you can get when boxing, so can it can be here. In this particular case, it probably has something to do with how hard you punch.

It’s way too common to see beginners, especially those who train on their own, throwing every single punch with full power without any much thought, and usually that’s done on the classic heavy bag.

The way it’s meant to be done is, as example, by launching some light jabs here and there, moving around, bobbing, stepping to the side then coming in with maybe a hard jab leading to a powerful cross, changing angles, etc.

Working the bag smartly won’t put so much constant stress on your hands which can definitely help in reducing the finger soreness.

Don’t forget to always warm up your hands before any hitting, and if you already do so, try to be thorough the next time.

New bags tend to be quite a bit firm and might lead to not only sore fingers but hands – the good thing is they break in after some pounding, just like the boxing gloves itself.

Time to take a break

The soreness in your fingers after punching, especially if persisting for a longer time, could be a sign to simply have some rest.

The finger area could have just literally gotten too much beating over a period of time, and because you continue to inflict pressure upon it, it can’t heal fully. Depending on how uncomfortable it is, you can always use an ice compress to make things better.