Using Gymnastics Grips for CrossFit

Most CrossFitters discover pretty early on in their initial forrays into the sport that beyond the intense soreness and cardiovascular shock of entering into a high intensity fitness program come a handful of minor annoyances, not the least of which is the almost constant hand tears. Before you develop the strong and smooth callouses that help prevent further rips, there is always a period of tearing and that intense stinging pain of performing pullups with bleeding hands.

If your experience has been anything like mine, the hand tears were as much a barrier to achieving more pullups and knees to elbows as the strength portion of the exercise. And you can’t build the strength if you can’t hang on to the bar. And you can’t build calluses if you don’t allow the hands to heal first. After experimenting with countless taping methods, and upping and lowering the amount of chalk on my hands, I finally turned to gymnastics grips. Simple, no nonsense, two holes for your fingers, a strap around your wrist, and a piece of leather that covers the areas most likely to tear.

Beyond preventing tears, which they do tremendously well, they served a second and more important purpose. As I wore them my hands slowly developed strong calluses. When you’re doing kipping pullups, the friction which causes the calluses is still present when using the grips, it’s just much less intense and much less likely to cause tearing. In any case, the calluses still build, but at a slower pace. The slower, more gradual growth of the calluses has allowed the skin on my hands to become much more resistant to tearing. I wore them for a period of about four months and have been without them for about two months and have not torn since.

In addition to grips, one of the keys to preventing rips, is proper skin maintenance. American River CrossFit had posted this on their blog some time ago, but it’s worth a repost. Hand Rips.