Best Workout Gloves and Grips for CrossFit: What Actually Works

I’ve been doing CrossFit for years and hand calluses from weightlifting have been a constant companion. During high-rep bodyweight exercises like pull-ups and toes-to-bar, those calluses increase the risk of blisters and skin tears — and I end up with ripped hands that take days to heal and make showers miserable.

Over the years, I’ve experimented with nearly every kind of hand protection — including gloves, gymnastic grips, chalk and tape — to figure out what actually works.

In this article, I’ll talk about my experience with each of those options. I’ll also go over how to take care of your hands, and explain why I eventually moved away from using grips entirely.

Here’s a quick overview of the specific products I mention throughout:

Why Calluses Form and Skin Tears

Calluses form when the outer layer of your skin becomes denser due to repeated pressure and friction. It’s actually a protective response; i.e., it’s your body’s way of armoring up against stress.

The barbell puts pressure on your palms during heavy lifts, and kipping or butterfly movements add rotational friction on top of that. Even kettlebell swings can do it. 

For example, when I get exhausted, my grip weakens, the KB starts to rotate in my hands, and the combination of friction and sweat is all it takes for skin to tear.

The problem is when calluses build up unevenly — such as a raised edge that catches on the bar and gets ripped off, taking healthy skin with it.

Therefore, your goal should be to manage calluses so they stay at a consistent, even thickness (more on that in the hand care section) and to reduce the friction that causes tears in the first place. 

That’s where gloves, grips, chalk and tape come in. 

Each of these tools addresses a different part of the problem, but none of them are perfect. 

If you’re doing 40+ kipping pull-ups, you’ll likely tear your skin regardless of how much chalk you use.

I’ve also learned that grip technique matters just as much as gear. 

I used to have an unnecessary “grip of death” that increased wear and tear on my hands no matter what protection I wore. Learning to loosen my grip helped as much as any product.

How To Prevent Calluses and Skin Tears

Below are the four methods I’ve tried, starting with Barehand Gloves — which worked well for me, especially for low-rep exercises and weight lifting.

1. Barehand Gloves

I discovered Raww, the makers of Barehand Gloves, after about a year of ripped palms from CrossFit. What I noticed immediately was how thin the material was. The ergonomic design feels natural in your hand, and during training, I barely felt like I was wearing gloves at all.

Hand Protection

What I like most about Barehand Gloves is their ability to protect my skin while not pinching my fingers as other grips and fitness gloves have a tendency to do. I guess that’s because of the soft yet durable material Raww chose for its gloves.

The two-layer construction virtually eliminates friction between the glove and your skin. The inner layer sticks to your skin, and the outer layer sticks to the bar, so the only friction happens between the two layers of the glove itself. 

That’s ingenious because it protects both your skin and the gloves from the rough surface of the exercise equipment.

Grip and Feel

A good grip requires close contact with the bar — which is why traditional weight lifting gloves, especially the ones with neoprene or silicone padding, tend to weaken your grip. At 1.3 mm (0.053 inches) thick, Barehand Gloves don’t have that problem.

During front squats, push presses and similar lifts, I tend to allow the bar to roll towards my fingers, putting unnecessary pressure on my wrist. Barehand Gloves help improve my form by keeping the bar closer to my wrist (the wrinkle prevents the bar from rolling towards your fingers and helps prevent wrist injuries). 

To leverage that feature, grab the end of the glove with your fingers to create a wrinkle (as shown in the photo below) before getting on the bar.

Unfortunately, I’ve occasionally triggered that feature during pull-ups. 

When I jump on the pull-up bar and grip the bar too close to my wrist, the gloves tend to wrinkle like in the photo above. The good news is that it’s not uncomfortable, and the gloves don’t come off — but I sometimes have to pull back on them during sets for a proper fit. 

Unlike when tape starts peeling off, this doesn’t disrupt your workout.

Out of all the methods I’ve tried, Barehand Gloves offered the best mix of comfort and protection for lifting. 

It’s worth mentioning that it takes 5 to 10 workouts for the gloves to “break in” and perform optimally. I broke mine in during Murph, a legendary CrossFit workout that includes, among other things, 100 pull-ups. They delivered on their promise, and I was impressed.

Important: Don’t use chalk in combination with Barehand Gloves, as it dries out the polyurethane material in the product. Also, take the time to break in your gloves properly. Based on how much abuse the gloves have to endure, their life expectancy is between 3 months and 1.5 years, according to Raww. Mine started showing signs of wear after a few months of regular use.

That said, I think Barehand Gloves are best suited for regular gym and powerlifting exercises — things like deadlifts, presses, rows and squats. They don’t replace leather grips for pull-ups, chest-to-bar or any ring work, where you need something that can create a fold around the bar and handle rotational friction.

2. Bear KompleX Hand Grips

When I started doing CrossFit, one of the first pieces of equipment I purchased was Bear KompleX three-hole CrossFit grips. I saw other athletes in my box using similar hand grips and figured they’d work just as well. The grips did an excellent job of protecting my palms, but they were a bit uncomfortable at first (the leather needs to be broken in). 

However, the main issue was that they wrinkled when I gripped the bar, and that wrinkle pinched my fingers. As a result, I often ended up taking the grips off mid-workout, which defeated the purpose.

I asked around in my box, and while some athletes shared my complaints, others seemed to be happy with them. Many professional CrossFitters use grips like these for competition, which tells me they’re reliable and effective — at least for some people. 

Some athletes either don’t mind the wrinkle, are less sensitive, or use tape to prevent the crease from forming. But I couldn’t get them to work, so I stopped using them and went back to tape.

After initially publishing this article, Bear KompleX reached out with the following:

“One tip that may personally help you with your comfort issues is to wear the grips a little higher on the fingers. I know you said that you weren’t a big fan of the fold but doing this helps to create that dowel fold which can help “lock” you onto the bar. Try wearing the finger holes around your middle knuckle joint so that when you grab the bar you get a small fold in the finger area versus the palm. It might take a workout or two to get used to but this is a very popular technique among the high-level athletes.”

After hearing from the company, I decided to give the grips another try on a WOD with high rep counts. To my surprise, I managed to get the fit issues under control. So I started using my Barehand Gloves for lower rep count WODs and for lifting weights, and the Bear KompleX grips for high rep count pull-ups and toes-to-bar.

But guess what? I still occasionally tore my skin, even with grips on — which is when I realized the “grip of death” problem I mentioned earlier was the real culprit, not the grips themselves.

It’s worth noting that Bear KompleX has expanded their lineup significantly since I first reviewed them. They’re now the “Official Hand Grip of the CrossFit Games,” which tells you something about their popularity. 

The original leather grips I reviewed are still available (for around $45), but they also offer Carbon Comp, Black Diamond and Pinnacle variants in two-hole, three-hole and fingerless configurations. The Carbon Comp grips in particular have become popular for powder-coated bars.

I eventually moved on from Bear KompleX to Victory Grips Tactical, which I reviewed in a separate article, before ultimately moving away from grips entirely — but more on that below.

3. Chalk

Chalk helps reduce skin tears by keeping your hands dry. 

It works to a degree because sweaty palms are one of the biggest friction multipliers. But it won’t do anything for callus formation, since calluses form from pressure and chalk can’t prevent that.

That said, the main problem with chalk is its lack of durability. 

In short, it rubs off fast. And if you don’t reapply it, you’re unprotected. 

In the middle of a workout, you may not want to stop and re-chalk — and by the time you notice the chalk has worn off, your skin may already be tearing. 

But you also don’t want to overdo it. Excessive chalk dries your skin out and makes calluses brittle, which actually increases the risk of tears.

Exercises where I think chalk is effective against skin tears include:

• Straight pull-ups
• Barbell lifts
• Ring rows

What these have in common is minimal bar rotation. I try not to rely on chalk alone for movements that involve rotation, including:

• Kipping or butterfly pull-ups
• Kipping toes to bar
• Muscle-ups
• Rope climbing
• Kettlebell swings

Chalk is also useful in combination with leather grips, because it adds grip to the smooth leather surface. And working out without any chalk at all sucks, to be perfectly honest (especially for pull-ups and similar bodyweight exercises).

I also tried Char Chalk, an activated charcoal alternative that was mess-free and worked well, but the company appears to have gone out of business.

4. Athletic Tape

When I realized chalk wasn’t enough, I started taping my hands and wrists before workouts that I knew would be tough on my hands. I bought a six-pack of athletic tape on Amazon and made sure to always keep a roll in my gym bag.

Tape is thick enough to help prevent both calluses and blisters (it also provides a little bit of wrist support). 

Here’s how to tape your hands before an intense workout like pull-ups:

1. Spread your fingers to avoid wrapping the tape too tightly and restricting your range of motion.
2. Start on top of your index finger and continue taping along the crease line where your fingers meet your hand.
3. With each round, tape a bit closer towards the middle of your hand.
4. Stop right above your thumb line.

The problem is that tape peels off. 

It works great while it’s in place, but it often doesn’t stay put through a full workout.

I’ve finished shorter WODs with my tape intact and my skin protected, but on longer workouts, it tends to come loose — and once it does, you’re exposed. 

Tape also works better when you have time to grip the bar properly. If the clock is running and I’m rushing between movements, the tape can shift out of position.

Here’s the bottom line on tape: it’s reliable for strict pull-ups, short sets of kipping or butterfly movements, ring rowing, barbell lifts and kettlebell swings. 

For long sets of kipping or butterfly pull-ups on the clock, I wouldn’t count on it.

My Approach Now: Training Without Grips

After years of testing the methods above — plus Victory Grips, which became my favorite gymnastic grip for a while — I’ve gotten away from using any sort of helper gear.

No grips, no belts, no wraps, no straps.

My philosophy now is simple: if I can’t do a movement without help, I either train differently to get there or I modify the movement.

What pushed me in this direction was realizing that even the best grips didn’t fully solve the problem. I was still tearing, still dealing with calluses, and still dependent on having the right gear in my gym bag to get through a workout.

At some point I decided I’d rather build my grip strength and adapt my movements than keep relying on products to compensate.

Here’s a timeline showing how my relationship to grips has changed over the years, with a brief note on why. 

For pull-ups, switching to no grips has meant changing from doing kipping and butterfly — which pretty much require grips if you don’t want to tear — to strict pull-ups. I still use chalk for Olympic lifts like cleans and snatches, and even though I think grips would help, I just don’t bother relying on gear to get the work done.

This isn’t the right approach for everyone — the product recommendations above still stand, especially if you’re doing high-rep gymnastics movements. But if you’re willing to invest in building your grip strength and adapting your training, you might find — like I did — that you don’t need any of it.

How to Care for Your Hands

Taking care of your hands is just as important as choosing the right gloves or grips. Here’s what I’ve learned from years of ripped palms.

Callus Maintenance

The goal with calluses is to keep them maintained — not to get rid of them entirely. They serve a protective function, but only when they’re at an even, consistent thickness with no raised edges that can catch on the bar and tear.

I’ve made callus treatment part of my shower routine by gently using a foot file to shave down the raised portions of the calluses on my palms. I’m not trying to remove them completely — just leveling off anything that sticks up above the surrounding skin. 

The foot rasp I have is relatively coarse because it’s meant for feet, so I have to be careful not to inflict damage to the surrounding skin. Occasionally, I also use the rough side of a nail file to smooth out smaller calluses.

When a callus gets really thick, I use my cuticle trimmer to trim it back. Just make sure you don’t cut into the healthy skin underneath because that’ll hurt and would be counterproductive.

On your rest days, moisturize your hands — dry skin cracks more easily and is more prone to tearing. Just don’t do it right before training, or you’ll lose your grip on everything.

Treating a Ripped Hand

I’ve ripped my hands so many times that I’ve had plenty of opportunities to try different ways to speed up healing. The most effective method I’ve found is:

1. Cut away the dead skin.
2. Optionally: disinfect with hydrogen peroxide (it doesn’t burn on an open wound).
3. Leave the wound exposed to air for quicker healing.

I typically let the wound heal in the open air after cleaning it up. It takes about 24 hours before a new, albeit thin, layer of skin forms to protect the underlying flesh. Covering the wound with a Band-Aid tends to slow down healing, which is why I try to avoid it.

As for showering…

The warm water burns for the first few seconds and then goes away. But if you’re sensitive to pain, cover your ripped hand with a Ziplock bag before jumping into the shower.

As the hand heals, keep cutting away any dead skin around the wound using a cuticle trimmer. Leaving on the dead skin is another great way to rip again, because dead skin creates friction.

You could also use a liquid Band-Aid spray, like the one from New-Skin. However, I tried it once and, frankly, it hurt more than it helped.

Frequently Asked Questions

Final Thoughts

Everybody’s skin is different, and some athletes rip easier than others. I’ve known folks who claim they never rip, regardless of what they do. 

Unfortunately, I’m not one of them — which is why I spent years testing every option I could find.

If you’re looking for hand protection, here’s where I landed before I stopped using gear entirely:

• For lifting and general gym work, Barehand Gloves give you the best comfort-to-protection ratio.
• For kipping pull-ups, toes-to-bar, muscle-ups and ring work, you want leather grips — Bear KompleX or Victory Grips.
• Chalk is essential for Olympic lifts and useful as a supplement to everything else.
• And tape works in a pinch, but won’t hold up through a long WOD.

As I mentioned above, I eventually moved away from all of it by adapting my training and building my grip strength.

That’s not the right path for everyone, but it’s worth considering — especially if you find yourself dependent on gear just to get through a workout.