Just wondering what size gloves you guys use for hitting the bag and stuff.

Been boxing training for a good 10 months now (still undecided if I'm going to compete) and had been using the gloves at the gym, which are just basic mitts which are much lighter to what we use to spar.

When it came to sparring with the 16oz gloves my hands were much slower than when I was hitting the bag and shadowboxing, hence finding it difficult to land on the more experienced fighetrs. Just over a week ago I bought a second hand pair of 16oz sparring gloves and have been using them at home to shadowbox since. When I went on the heavy bag in the gym yesterday my hands were much quicker and had much improved my power.

So I'm just wondering if it's common practice to use heavy glove on the bags and sometimes even to shadow box to get used to the weight of the proper fighting gloves.