Can you do boxing with glasses? No, especially during sparring. If you’re serious about boxing, it’s best to consider using sports glasses. Barring that, you can train yourself to box without glasses. Not only will this skill help you improve as a fighter, but it’ll also give you the option to take your boxing to the next level – after all, professional and amateur fights don’t allow glasses.
Bad vision should not be the thing that discourages you from taking up martial arts or enjoying the benefits of a sport like boxing. But the truth is it can because it makes you wonder how to get around vision troubles while you train for boxing and makes you wonder if you can even box while wearing glasses.
If you are wondering about boxing with glasses, there is an unfortunate reality we must remind you of: professional fights do not allow contact lenses or glasses. Many amateur promotions do not allow them either.
So, if you want to take boxing seriously and spar, you cannot do it while wearing glasses.
Boxing with Glasses
Glasses are not just an inconvenience while working out or a violation of the rules in professional boxing. There are several reasons you should not wear them in boxing, most of which relate to safety.
While they cause no problems while hitting the heavy bag or focus mitts most of the time, they pose a genuine safety risk to both their wearer and the other athletes.
If you spar or wear glasses in a genuine fight, glasses can hurt both you and your opponent or partner, especially if a punch lands and breaks them. Not only will you be out a pair of glasses; they will break, and the shards could get in your eyes and irreparably damage them.
However, some alternatives can help you get around your bad vision and keep participating in boxing and martial arts without any vision problems. For example, sports glasses can help you keep cracking the heavy bag and the mitts without the danger of your glasses falling off, breaking, or putting shards in your eyes.
However, we will confidently claim that the best alternative to glasses is to learn how to box without aids to your vision, as it can help you take your skills to a higher level.
The First Question: Your Vision Itself
Before starting any sport, you will need to be honest with yourself. There are questions you need to address first regarding your physical capabilities and limitations. If your vision is a genuine limitation obstructing your ability to box, boxing may not be the sport for you.
But do not despair yet.
The best way to find out if you are eligible to box is to get a medically licensed examination for your eyes. There is only one result that disqualifies you: legally blind. So long as your doctor or examiner does not rule you legally blind, you are still eligible to put on gloves and engage in the sweet science, and you can even engage in a vision therapy plan.
However, you will have to find a way to keep your vision functioning while working out. That brings us to the second question you will have to address.
The Second Question: Your Reasons For Boxing
The sheer expanse of motivating factors that pull people to sports is what makes them unique. Boxing is no exception to this vast range of motivations that stand behind those who do it.
Some want to prove themselves, some want to release frustration, and some want to get themselves in good shape. Meanwhile, others want to be able to protect themselves or be able to fight professionally.
Before you begin boxing or even addressing the glasses question, you should address this question. If your motivation is not to participate in regulated fights, spar, or prove yourself, then the question of whether or not you can wear glasses is less important for your purposes.
If your motivation is to simply be in shape, improve your cardio, or improve your strength, then whether or not you can see punches coming or block other punches matters less.
Many vision-impaired men and women who take up boxing for fitness rather than the need to fight do not wear glasses in classes, as their ability to perceive movement quickly does not matter as much.
But if your motivation is related to the wish to compete, defend yourself, and avoid the brain damage risk of boxing, then the question of your vision and how quickly you can perceive movement toward you skyrockets back to importance.
Luckily for you, there are a few ways to keep you able to see what is moving toward you well while you duck punches and bob and weave.
Your Four Options While Boxing
Generally, there are four ways to get around your need for glasses in the ring, three of which are practical, and one of which is expensive, though functional.
These are your four options to keep you from wearing glasses while boxing:
- Sports Glasses
- LASIK Surgery
- Contact Lenses
- Extensive Eye Training
Each method has a common advantage: the absence of glass and the inability to send broken glass shards into your eye.
But past that, each method has unique advantages, disadvantages, and feasibility for each person.
To see how feasible a certain option on this list is for you, try speaking with the coach before you start classes as their boxing student and specifically bring up their glasses policy.
Some gyms will not care about athletes wearing normal glasses, others will insist on sport glasses, and others will say that no glasses of any kind are allowed.
No matter your situation, consult with your coach first and see what the situation and gym policy are. But, first, we can start by explaining the most feasible and easiest way to keep boxing while ensuring you can see: sports glasses.
Sports Glasses
Sports glasses can go a long way for you without hurting you if you are worried you won’t be able to see the heavy bag, focus mitts, or your opponent during practice.
Instead of being made of poor material and notoriously bad glasses rims, sports glasses are made of strong, durable plastic that will not break.
Additionally, sports glasses do not fall off because they are connected at the back of the head while their shape adheres tightly to the face. That feature assures there is no space between the lenses and the rest of your face, so there can be no contact between the thick padding of a glove and the protruding edges of your shades.
Sports glasses are not quite a fix-all for this sport, however, as sparring with them is not entirely practical because there is still the chance of breaking the glass’s frame.
While many coaches will allow you to train technique in sports glasses, some coaches may not allow sports glasses in their gym. These coaches tend to justify their sentiments by saying that no professional boxing organization allows sports glasses in fights, so why should they be in their gym?
LASIK Surgery
If your vision has bothered you for a long time, and you have the means to get this surgery and correct your vision, then this may be the means to solve your problem.
LASIK or other corrective eye surgeries remove the need for glasses or contact lenses.
These surgeries improve vision’s importance to its previous level. LASIK can even boast of up to 98% satisfaction among its patients.
While it is an attractive solution for making eye problems disappear, the average cost of LASIK surgery is about $1,000 to $4,000 for each eye that needs repair. However, if you want to be a professional boxer and fighter and know you have what it takes to do this sport as a career, then this option may be suited to you.
If a dip in your quality of vision has also affected your life or ability to participate in sports regularly, then LASIK may be for you too.
Contact Lenses
We have reached the most controversial solution to the glasses question in boxing: contact lenses.
In addition to being one of the most argued solutions, contact lenses are also one of the most commonly employed answers to poor vision in boxing.
Contact lenses help you see without having anything in front of your face and nothing that can crash into your head as you move. That lack of exposure and the effect of contacts removes the worry or question of wondering if you can see the punch coming. Instead, they help you direct your mental energy to the task in front of you.
Contact lenses have two disadvantages: they can be lost easily and cause eye injuries. Contact lenses can be hit out of someone’s eye, making them nearly impossible to find.
Meanwhile, the injuries they can potentially cause to the eye can make you shiver. These injuries are why sports doctors recommend using protection for contact lenses.
Contact lenses can get stuck, make your eyes swell, or get buried deep in your eye and become difficult to remove.
Eye Training
Eye training is perhaps the most practical solution, but it requires more patience than the other solutions. Training your eyesight is almost a misnomer, but we do not know what else to call it. This option is about instilling muscle memory and discipline in your body while teaching your eyes to react and use the vision they do have.
You can start training your eyes by removing your glasses when your coach wants you to hit the heavy bags or the focus mitts. You do not need glasses for these instances. You just need to develop your hands. You will get an intuitive sense of distance over time and will not need glasses to continue understanding.
After the bag and the mitts, you can move up to shadow boxing and sparring with a partner you know will not hurt you.
All these will gradually begin serving you and get you to notice the crucial movements of boxing without the crutch of glasses. You start reading punches and telegraphs based on movement rather than finite details, and you will be able to use intuitive knowledge of where your punches are going.
Final Thoughts: Can You Do Boxing With Glasses?
Once again, if you were wondering if you could use glasses while you boxed, the short answer is no. Regular glasses jeopardize your safety while you box, and if part of your motivation for boxing is to learn perseverance or to compete in a pro fight, then here is where you start – by finding a way to keep going without the crutch of glasses.
You cannot wear glasses in an actual match, so you will have to perfect your skills without them if you wish to be a “boxer.”
And if you wish to begin diving further into boxing and other similar sports, feel free to check out our other posts about this and learn more about the “sweet science” and whether or not you are eligible to participate in this terrific sport.
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