Based on usage, there are 3 types of martial art glove:
1. Cloth Glove
Thin glove made from daily cloth, used to absorb sweat on our hand in various sport activities.
Often used inside Boxing glove to absorb the sweat. Some boxers prefer to use hand wrap like ancient Greek - Roman style.
2. Training Glove
Thin but hard padded glove, used to weightening your hand and protecting your fist while punching heavy bag.
This hard glove is unsafe for sparring / tournament because it hard construction will injure your opponent, feels like got punched by brass knuckle.
3. Fighting Glove
Thick but soft padded glove, used to reduce your punching power in sparring / fighting tournament so your opponent will not be injured too badly.
This soft glove is unsafe for heavy bag training because it soft construction can’t protect your fist well against hard object like heavy bag (hitting human target is totally different, because you opponent will pushed back so the impact won’t crashing your fist too much).
Note:
By the way, you don’t need to buy those all expensive products forcefully. Just buy product you’ll use in your training.
For example is me. I only use daily cloth glove for training, because my martial art training is focus on daily cardio exercise - self defense aspect. Shadowboxing / hitting the air exercise is already enough for me because i am no longer working as professional fighter (unlike when i still active in high school Karate team, now i don’t need to buy fighting glove and other expensive protectors).
