IMF foam Gloves - What Companies Make Them - Pros, Cons

[Tim Bob]

In my research I focus a lot on different types of padding in gloves and their respective types (punchers, defensive, pillows, hybrids).

1. What other companies besides Ringside are using IMF technology? is Venum using IMF? RDX, REVGEAR, and more of the cheaper boxing gloves? Im pretty sure Title uses IMF and especially in their Fighting S2's.

Personally I believe you should have 2 gloves

• sparring pair - softer on your opponent, open celled foam
• training/bag pair - denser closed cell foam (unless you have say winning you can do both pretty well)

Think of a temperpedic mattress vs a wrestling matt.

This will not only keep your friends safe, but it will also increase the longevity of your hands, joints, and overall years you can train.

• However if you cant afford this, a good training glove will have softer foam on the outside and denser towards your hand which is what most gloves are marketed as. This is the most common glove you will see in an average gym.

I know the different types of multilayered foam in various gloves however I am having a hard time getting information on what companies are employing IMF and at what densities.

What I do not know is which gloves are using IMF besides Ringside. The problem I see with IMF is a binary problem - you can have a dense foam good for training or a softer foam good for sparring. However most companies would be less likely to make a less dense version and sell it to the masses because they would wear out quicker if not used for intended purpose.

What other companies are using IMF technology?

Please let me know if you have any knowledge on this subject. Im compiling a list of all gloves, their types, intended uses, etc. and would be happy to share.

Thanks

 

[Minowafanatic]

Loads, lol

 

[Tim Bob]

I would imagine so. It seems an easy and quick way of production. Do you know of any specific companies?

 

[Minowafanatic]

I would imagine so. It seems an easy and quick way of production. Do you know of any specific companies?

Every company that makes AIBA gloves so that's stuff like Adidas, Green Hill, Sting, Velo, Wesing, TaiShan, and others, and most of those use them in some of their cheaper training gloves. Everlast, Lonsdale, Ring To Cage, Title (in the OP you said S2 but that's not IMF, the ones they call "Infused Foam" will be), I'm guessing Revgear's kids gloves are.

If you search for cheap boxing gloves, like a third of them will be IMF. But you won't find a lot of results searching for "IMF" because afaik, that specific term is trademarked by Ringside, which is why you don't see other companies (especially based in the US) advertising with that term that much.

 

[Tim Bob]

That makes sense. I’ve searched the different companies in the fifty dollar range and I can see that’s most likely the case.
1v1 has a YouTube video explaining the different molds and it’s pretty simple slapping a single mold into a glove. I guess ringside trademarked the name but that doesn’t mean other companies don’t use that similar process. It’s like angling the wrist cuff of a glove like rivals trademark 15 degree angled cuff and calling it something else. In most of the gloves it looks like the expensive lines are multilayered (technical featuress describe it usually) and then the cheaper gloves all look pretty similar.
I guess it’s not such a bad thing if the foam is protective, holds up, and you’re a casual boxer who can get a decent glove for a cheap price.
But what really annoys me is when someone has really hard cheap gloves and go to spar and don’t know the differences.

 

[Tim Bob]

I was reviewing the venum gloves and it looks like their pro gloves 2.0 is a couple layers of polyethylene which is closed cell foam. Sounds pretty hard like a wrestling mat. But I’ve never used a glove with polyethelene so I would not know. I just know closed cell foam tends to be much tougher that’s why we wrestle on closed cell foam lol.

 

[mides]

Injection molded foam for boxing gloves was invented by German Georg Brückner. His brand Top Ten used it exclusively for years as Top Ten was the AIBA equipment for all Olympic Games from 1992 to 2000 and most of the international championships since 1987. Back then the big advantage was that this padding molded in 1 piece could not be manipulated. You could not push it aside or degrade it by punching against the wall in the locker room like you could the old horsehair gloves. Brückner had extremely high quality standards with th paddings being produced in Germany, but he died a long time ago.
After his patents expired, everybody could produce IMF based paddings and they are now produced in China that produces them for less then 50 Cents a pair as compared to the 20 bucks that the old TopTen pads from Bayfill foam must have been priced at.
A lot of factors go into the quality of foams and I am sure, most campanies just use the most generic materials to keep the cost down. I'd say the use of IMF with a new glove means high safety standards for competition gloves.
When you come to long term use training gloves it depends on the quality of the material and the overall architecture of the glove. Evereybody likes it a bit differently. The same glove will make a huge differece in a fighter that is 10 pounds heavier and punches against a harder heavybag.

For me, I like IMF foam gloves that ideally have a furrow on the inside of the backhand to better preserve their structure and an extra layer on the target area. Just my 2 cents.