Lacrosse gloves are pretty popular in HEMA circles as hand protection for a couple of reasons. First while they vary greatly in price, there are some quite cheap ones (40-50 euros), second they are easily available. Also they are very comfortable, you can move your fingers independently, and they are very durable. People use them in two main ways.
The first is right off the shelf, mostly for plastic, and sometimes steel weapons. They can work quite well for rapier or saber fencing, where the hand is well protected by the weapons built in protection, but for other weapons, like longsword they are not really that good. I would only recommend them for steel weapons if you only drill, or train with them with great control and care.
While the padding can be enough to stop the strike from a sword blade, there are gaps at the tips of the finger, usually the side of the index and pinky finger, sometimes at the middle of the thumb, and also at the knuckles. Any kind of reasonably forceful strike to these areas can easily cause a broken finger, and thus take the fencer out of action for weeks or months. Sadly I saw this several times, at competitions and also at simple trainings. The wrist protection can be quite sub optimal too. There are other problems too, for example some lacrosse gloves are very bulky so you can easily get hit simply because of the excessive bulkiness of the gloves.
The second way you can use your lacrosse gloves is as a base , that you upgrade with different materials. Most people I know use leather strips to upgrade the main areas where the gloves lack in protection.
I bought my lacrosse gloves around 3 years ago, and used them for the last 3 years for steel weapon sparring. I upgraded the index and middle finger, and also the thumb and the back of the hand with leather. I still got several very nasty hits and bruises on my fingers, but luckily I didn’t break any of them. I had some problems with my glove upgrades though, because it required a lot of maintenance, the leather parts were always flying off during training, sparring or competing.
Also if you plan on upgrading them, upgrade the left one too! 🙂
A great article about upgrading lacrosse gloves for HEMA:
http://www.instructables.com/id/HEMA-Hackers-Inserts-for-lacrosse-gloves/
If you plan to use lacrosse gloves in your HEMA training for longsword, I would recommend either using plastic swords, because the edges are much thicker then steel weapons, there is less chance for a strike to enter into a gap in the gloves. The other option is using swords with side rings, because they add a nice protection from one of the most common ways an attack can come.
There is a great piece of equipment, called the “SPES Fingertip Protectors”, which is available from SPES here:
http://histfenc.com/productcart/fingertips-protectors
These go into the glove to protect the tips and also littlebit to the sides of the fingers. I would recommend these to be used with size 13 gloves, because I found them to be too bulky for a size 12 (especially for a size 12 Red Dragon glove).
All things considered I would only recommend using them if any 2 of these are true:
– they are upgraded (either with leather, plastic or other means from the in or outside)
– if you use plastic swords (like Rawlings or Blackfencer)
– if you and your training partners exercise great control
If you use lacrosse gloves in your training please let me know in the comments, and also note what kind of weapons you use it for and what are your experiences!
One more thing: if you use padded swords they are OK, I regularly use mine for that at my beginners training, and haven’t received any injury.
Some reviews on the topic.
111smosh, Youtube:
HEMA EQUIPMENT 