Harbinger Training Grip Weight Glove

A weight-lifting glove today ain’t your grandma’s weight-lifting glove (Wait. Did your grandma lift weights? hmmm). Especially this new one for 2002 by glove-expert Harbinger called the Training Grip.

We’ve worn a lot of gloves for so many years we won’t go into detail for fear of dating ourselves. Bottom line, the feel of this material is the best yet.

Particularly of note are the gel-filled comfort pads in the palms of the gloves, the buttery-soft suede material so you don’t feel like Mike Tyson in a boxing match, and slightly longer cut fingers to protect your knuckles. We really like the tiny little spots of padding on the inside of the fingers, rather than just more fabric, because they protect areas that don’t naturally have much fat padding.

A couple of fit items: In the women’s version, there seems to be some issues with what a women’s size really means. As we’ve learned through long discussions with Manzella Glove owner Tony Manzella — (refer to our Product Showcae from Jan. 29, 2002), women’s hands aren’t just downsized men’s hands. So although we got a size that was appropriately snug on the fingers and fit between the fingers just right, the palm was still a bit baggy (which can get in the way when holding bars), and the wrist Velcro closure doesn’t snug down as well as it should. Long story short, women’s hands get longer and not necessarily thicker through the palm as they size up and wrists stay thinner. We did not test the men’s version.

Despite the woman’s fit, the material is still the most comfortable we’ve used. So our woman tester still says this is the glove that will keep going in the gym bag because glove manufacturers apparently still don’t have a clue when it comes to fitting a woman’s hand. Harbinger remains solidly on top of a heap of gloves that really should serve women better.

Suggested retail:
Men’s wrist wrap version, $29.95
Men’s and women’s non-wrist wrap version, $24.95

www.harbingerfitness.com
1-800-729-5954

SNEWS rating: 4 hands clapping