Are your cycling gloves causing your hand numbness?

Cycling gloves are one of those well meaning pieces of equipment that all too often get in the way. There's a few particular challenges in designing and fitting gloves that make this more likely - check out this video and article to see why your cycling gloves might be the cause of rather than the solution to some of your problems.https://youtu.be/hOKYUsce37wCycling Gloves are the culprit....?

• gloves are necessary for some things like keeping your hands from freezing in the cold or as protection from rocks when mountain biking in some areas, but often they fail as a means of mitigating pressure on the nerves and blood vessels in our hands
• I've always struggled with wearing them and so unless I have to, I tend to eschew them entirely
  • even in the winter, if I ride a mountain-style bar I will do so with pogies and not wear gloves at all
• one common mistake is that people can fasten the wrist closure, which is usually velcro, too tighly
  • then when they go to extend their wrist there is excessive compression placed over the underside of the wrist causing numbness
    • note: numbness can be caused by putting pressure on the nerves, but also whenblood flow is restrcited because it's the blood vessels that supply nutrition to the nerves

• problem is that gloves aren't sized very specifically - generally only small, medium, large , and extra-large
  • so only limited number of sizes but hands can be as varied in size (or even more so) than feet
• measurement from the base of the palm to the base of the fingers is the toughest one to get right.
  • it's very easy to make this too tight which will then place pressure on the nerves as they lead to the fingers
• more importantly, an ill-fitting glove, either too tight or too loose, will make the "padding" actually fall in the wrong place and it can place direct pressure on the nerves