James is a congenital amputee from Leeds, who’d grown up surrounded by sport. As a child he loved boxing and rugby and was keen to try it competitively, but found there were limited options for someone with a limb impairment. At the time, there were little to no upper limb devices for him to try out, so by the age of thirteen he had given up with using a prosthesis completely, “personally, I found I got on better without them.” Determined to still continue with boxing, he settled for training on the pads and bags with a boxing glove tied onto the end of his residual limb, but struggled when it came to sparring as he didn’t have the reach he needed. But the love for the sport kept him going, “I just enjoy all aspects of the sport, the art, defence, and technical skill of boxing.”

The solution
It wasn’t until years later, when James struck up a conversation with a patient at his local prosthetic centre who had had a custom canoe arm created for them, that he became intrigued by the idea that a device could be made to aid his boxing training. He asked his prosthetist Asad if there was scope for a prosthesis which could provide some extra reach, who was positive they would be able to help. Asad had him bring in his current boxing device - a boxing glove stuffed with socks - and discussed what he was looking for.

Roger, a prosthetic technician at Seacroft, then set to work to create a boxing arm which would not only be safe, but also functional so as not to compromise James’ ability to spar against others.

Firstly, he created a carbon laminated socket to fix the hand on to, and then took measurements of James’ sound side and his boxing gloves. From this they created a foam hand which would fit snugly within the glove, before fixing it onto the socket and reinforcing it with a durable binding material. The foam hand was then covered with another layer of soft foam, before a final covering of leather was added for cosmetic effect.