No one likes to rip/tear/blister.
No one likes to wear gloves either. The majority don’t, at least.
I fall into the majority, but I also fortunately don’t rip very often. I never wear gloves, the most you’ll ever see me with are gymnastics grips that I’ll probably end up taking off mid-WOD anyways. That being said, I’m a sucker for a good pair of grips. Why, because eventually you and I, will tear, and you’ll be wishing you had a solid pair of grips when that happens.
While with most gymnastic grips, you find yourself having to velcro them to your wrist, making it difficult to transition to barbell movements or wear wrist wraps. With the New Grip Power Pads, all you have to do is slide them over your palms; they stay on your hands using an elastic strap that goes from one side of the pad to the other. Simple, yet effective construction is mainly why I like these grips. You can easily remove them or put them back on, use them with wrist wraps, or simply slide them around if you need to transition to barbell movements. There is really nothing that can go wrong with these grips.
The actual pad itself is just a piece of neoprene with an elastic strap; once again simple in design but effective in use. Neoprene forms to your hand and provides excellent grip, any chalk is just an added bonus to your grip. I didn’t find myself even needing to chalk up while using these grips for the toes to bar portion of 15.1. Sweaty hands aren’t a problem either since the neoprene just absorbs the sweat. They’re thick enough so I doubt you’ll have any issues with sweat penetrating to the other side of the grip and they’re thin enough so that they shouldn’t affect your grip unless you have itty bitty hands.
At $15 bucks for a pair, you really can’t go wrong here if you’re tired of the typical gymnastic grip design or if you have issues even wearing hand protection like me. I wear a medium, but have slightly smaller than average hands for my size so they’re a little big on me. Kyle Gurkovich set the world record in 2013 for pull-ups done in 24 hours with an astounding 4234 without tearing using these same grips. If they can take that kind of beating, you can be sure they’ll handle any WOD you can throw at them. Made in the U.S.A. 🙂