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Can You Do Boxing With Glasses? (4 Simple Solutions)

Boxing is an excellent starting point for any aspiring mixed martial artist, it establishes the basis for almost any kind of fighting sport.

If you’re vision impaired, you might be concerned about boxing with glasses, especially if you’re new to the sport.

In short, can you do boxing with glasses?

Instead of Boxing with glasses, it’s safest to take them off whilst you train and get comfortable with trusting all your senses which will improve over time. When fighting competitively, you should wear contacts to regain your edge for the fight.

If you’re looking for more details about the options available to you, then keep reading!

How To Do Boxing If You Need Glasses

Boxing is an amazing sport and martial art to learn to give you a great base for fighting. Even if you need to wear glasses because your vision is impaired, you can still practice Boxing and learn some essentials.

For the most part, learning Boxing doesn’t actually require you to take a hit in the face. So it is possible for you to learn how to Box whilst wearing your glasses.

Pad work with a coach, practice on the heavy bag, and shadowboxing is all fundamental training elements of learning Boxing; and none of these have any fists swinging at your face. Which makes it possible to train in these ways and still wear your glasses.

BUT!

If you decide to try wearing your glasses whilst Boxing, then take precautions and work with an experienced coach. Obviously, as with any kind of sport, there’s a chance that you put yourself in danger doing sports whilst wearing your glasses.

Great coaches know how to teach their students in a safe way. But there’s always a small chance where things can go wrong, and you wouldn’t want to break sharp glass around your eyes or have to buy a new pair of glasses anyway.

It could save you a lot of risk and money by just finding a better alternative to train with instead of wearing your glasses whilst Boxing.

In the rest of this article, I’ll give you some recommendations about those alternatives.

Wearing Contacts Whilst Boxing

A female fighter boxing on the heavy bag
  • Pros: Sparring and competitive fights wearing them
  • Cons: They can fall out in the middle of a spar or fight

One of the simplest options to consider whilst learning Boxing is to wear contacts. If you haven’t already, you can get a prescription for contact lenses and you can wear them during training and even sparring.

Fun story: I should mention that I’ve seen contacts fly out of the eyes of my opponent during a light tournament (seriously!) after I caught him the right way. He couldn’t quite see as well for the rest of the fight, but he still won!

In some competitions, there could be rules that if a contact falls out during the fight then the referee could stop the fight to give the opponent the win.

Another possibility is for the contact to get dislodged from its proper position and find its way around the sides of the eye. It’s incredibly uncomfortable but quite rare for it to happen.

The contact lenses come in different types such as soft lenses which are comfortable and can be worn for longer periods, and disposable lenses which might not be quite as comfortable or last as long but can be cheaper on the wallet for temporary needs like sparring.

You may not be able to get the right kinds of prescriptions for your eyes (though most people can) or you might simply refuse to stick your finger in your eye. I can appreciate that, keep reading to see other options.

Wearing Sports Glasses Whilst Boxing

A pair of prescription sports glasses
  • Pros: Easy to wear for training, can use for most practice
  • Cons: Can’t wear them for sparring or competitively

Sports glasses are a pretty simple and effective solution to allow you to train Boxing at a significant level of intensity without so many safety concerns.

You can get your prescription and provide it to a specialist to create your own custom pair of sports goggles.

Sportspeople have used this kind of solution even at a competitive level in Tennis and Soccer. But sports glasses can’t be used in sparring or a competitive fight, as it’s against the rules to wear anything on or around your face that could obstruct a punch.

You can use sports glasses for getting started in Boxing and doing your usual training at the gym like pad work, heavy bag, shadow boxing, and even conditioning. But when it comes to getting into a fight, you simply cannot use them.

Having Eye Surgery For A Permanent Fix

  • Pros: Potentially a long-term or permanent fix
  • Cons: Very expensive, risks of not being successful

If you have the cash to spend and the desire, there is of course eye surgery which has the potential to offer long-term and sometimes permanent fixes for correcting your vision. Some people will get LASIK to improve their eyesight.

Note: I’m not a Doctor, so go get professional advice!

There are risks to any kind of surgery, but if you simply can’t bear to use contacts every day or wear sports glasses then it could be one of your last options.

Make sure to do your research in finding local reputable surgeons, get a consultation, and ask lots of questions.

Having your eyes fixed semi-permanently can be really empowering for a lot of people as most of their daily struggles are left behind and they can pursue any hobbies or sports they want to; like Boxing!

Try Without Glasses

  • Pros: Cheapest solution, builds up your other senses
  • Cons: It might be blurry and more difficult early on

As a last resort, you can try Boxing without wearing glasses or anything else at all. Some fighters do this and spend a lot of time squinting during training or sparring.

It isn’t ideal to not be able to see a left hook coming your way, but some do it like this and try to get by.

In time, your eyes could potentially improve on their own as your eyes become less dependant on the corrective glass.

It’s worth saying that fighting is also a lot about using your senses rather than just your eyesight. Most of what we see during a fight is just motion blur, we feel motion with a combination of senses.

A lot of improvement in any martial art, including Boxing, comes from trusting your senses above your eyesight. Getting used to the blurry vision and training despite it will help you to trust in yourself more and then just imagine how good you can be when you do decide to put in some contacts.

So overall, can you do Boxing with glasses? It’s best to simply take them off and trust in your senses. Or you can get contact lenses or sports glasses for use whilst you train if your eyesight is simply too bad. Hopefully, now you have a good idea of the best option for you!

Now you know about eyewear for boxing, you might also want to read if you can do MMA with glasses.

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