NewGrip CrossFit Gloves | Pull Up & Chin Up Grips for WODs | Cushioned Callus & Blister Guards

Why CrossFit Athletes love WODing with NewGrip Gloves:

• There isn't a more versatile, customizable, flexible CrossFit Glove on the market.
• NewGrip Gloves are ideal for any kind of Pull Up or Chin Up, buy enhancing grip and are the only custom fit CrossFit Glove.
• NewGrip CrossFit Gloves are specifically designed to prevent blisters and tears that can derail a WOD.
• NewGrip wrist support keep wrist healthy while allowing full range of motion.
• NewGrip Gloves feature a open backed breathable design so sweaty hands won't slip and slide.
• NewGrip neoprene hand pads give athletes a custom grip, just use with chalk for more grip.

CrossFit and Functional Fitness has taken the fitness world by storm over the past 10 years.  Pro athletes and novice gym rats are seeing the best fitness results of their lives doing simple body weight exercises, like pull ups, lifting dead weights, kettle bells to name a few.  The only down site to the speed and intensity of a typical CrossFit workout is how badly they can trash your hands.  Your hands are the contact point of almost every CrossFit movement, and over the course of a workout blisters, rips and chaffed hands almost always occur.  Nothing is more discouraging than having to taking days off from WODDing waiting for blistered and ripped hands to heal.

NewGrip has developed a highly versatile CrossFit Glove that can hold up to the rigors of an intense WOD, but also is versatile enough for any aspect of the WOD.  

Moving from exercise to exercise is no problem with NewGrip gloves, if you have to transition from Pull Ups to Push Ups quickly, simply tear the NewGrip hand pads off, and re-attach after your set.  

NewGrip neoprene hand pads distribute weight across your palm which means less pain when you lift heavier max lifts due to the awesome wrist and hand stability you'll feel.  The perfect glove for rings and bars, NewGrip Gloves stabilize hands and never slide or slip like other CrossFit Gloves.

Another great benefit of WODing with NewGrip CrossFit Gloves is the breathable open backed design.  We spoke to many CrossFit athletes who love NewGrip because (unlike in traditional gloves) their hands no longer sweat and slip on bars.

NewGrip Gloves are perfect for any kind of Pull Ups, muscle ups or kipping pull ups.

Here is a blog post about why athletes should wear CrossFit Gloves:

Why I wear NewGrip CrossFit Gloves, why you should too.  

If you do CrossFit like I do, then you’ve heard it all before.  Wearing CrossFit gloves makes you look like a wuss, you’ll become dependent on gloves for your workout, and your CrossFit experience isn’t as real with gloves on.  You hear that enough times and you start to believe it.  I love the cult of CrossFit, I love the life style, and I love the way my body looks and feels over the past year of doing it.  The results of CrossFit are amazing, but like any cult things get taken into the extreme. 

The common reasonable reasons you hear for not wearing gloves while doing CrossFit:

• The connection with the bar isn’t as good.
• Gloves become sweaty and sticky over time
• Gloves aren’t allowed in CrossFit Competitions
• Gloves don’t work for all parts of the WOD and you’re constantly taking them on and off.
• Gloves hinder the formation of calluses which actually toughen your hands up.

I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures of bloodied and torn hands on CrossFit message boards and blogs, these are supposed to be badges of honor.  I’ve had them too and left my pound of hand flesh on the gym floor for all to see.  What the pictures don’t say is that, you’re either skipping the next day’s WOD, or taking it easy on your hands until those gashes heal up.  Also those pictures fail to mention that if the blister or callus tears in the beginning of your WOD you’re leaving a bloody trail on every piece of equipment you touch, this is neither safe, nor sanitary, it’s downright gross.   I myself was skipping several WOD’s a week because I couldn’t bear to do kipping pull-ups, or even lift any amount of weight with my jacked up hands.  My CrossFit membership costs over $100 a month, I did the math, and the logic told me I should start wearing CrossFit gloves, these blisters and gashes are costing were costing me lot of money, possible infection, and potential fitness. 

So I went on the search for the perfect CrossFit glove for me.  There are tons to choose from.   Every site selling  CrossFit gloves promising incredible results, so I decided to dive in and try a few for myself.  After checking out the FITBOMB blog about CrossFit hand care, I tried the Reebok CrossFit gloves which are similar to batting gloves which they recommend.   I had seen a few folks wearing in my box and had high hopes.  Other folks at my gym had told me they liked these because the thin material gave them great contact with the bar and were fairly low profile.  After trying them I agreed, but they really didn’t solve my blister problem, plus through an intense WOD I found they got super sweaty, sticky and hard to pull off.  Plus I noticed that there was really no padding in the palm, so my hands were essentially digging into the bar.  These were about $40 and they really didn’t deliver the relief I was hoping for.  Next I tried CrossFit “gloves” that were a designed a little outside the box by Fit Four.  These I found also got sweaty and tended to roll and bunch through my workout, they also cut into my fingers over the parts they were cut off.  While they did work for certain parts of a WOD, overall I found them not giving me the protection that I needed.  

At this point I tried taking a step back, combining tape and chalk, which is also pretty popular at my gym.  Again one of my favorite blogs, FitBomb has a great diagram on how to tape up your hands correctly. After a few failed attempts and a small pile of twisted tape, (and some help from experienced CrossFit tapers) I got my hands all taped up.  I took a trip to the chalk bucket and launched into my WOD. The tape and chalk combo worked well at first, but by the end of my WOD the tape, chalk and sweat had made a sticky bunched up mess on my hands that was pretty irritating.  My hands were sticking to every bar as the tape became more and more twisted.   After putting the tape on, which was a huge pain in the ass, and having it become all gnarled, it just felt wasteful throwing it all away at the end of my WOD.   Also maybe I am the only one who thinks that the communal chalk bucket in a CrossFit gym is gross, but if folks are dipping over and over again in with sweaty, torn up hands, that’s pretty damn gross.   Some of the athletes at my gym go WAY over board on the chalk, literally leaving a cloud behind them when they are WODing, I totally don’t get it.  For them it could be like walking onto a stage through a smoke machine, but it’s definitely not for me.

I went back to the drawing board to try and find some alternative to regular CrossFit gloves that might work and was starting to think that I’d have to resign myself to a CrossFit existence with blistered hands.  I did some more research and read a posting about NewGrip CrossFit Gloves on one of my favorite blogs Tuff Phit.  I say gloves, but these aren’t really gloves.  The best way to describe NewGrips is a two piece system, wrist support and a hand pad held on by Velcro at your wrist.  First impression, they look weird, I was not going to score cool points wearing these.   Since nothing else had worked up to this point, I was willing to try NewGrips with an open mind, plus their site mentioned a 90 day return policy, so I didn’t have anything to lose.

 After using NewGrip CrossFit gloves just once I didn’t care that they looked weird, they seemed to really work.  The first time I grabbed a bar wearing NewGrips I noticed several very interesting things.  My hands really gripped the bar better than my bare hands, the pads are made of tough Neoprene and they are the perfect material for bars and rings.  They weren’t so sticky that the bar didn’t rotate in my hands, which is huge, I was able to do kipping pull ups more comfortably than I ever have before.  They are thicker than other gloves I’d found for CrossFit, and the thickness provided a cushioning for my palms, for the first time I did a Pull Up without feeling the skin on my hands twisting and separating, it was a great moment.

As went through my WOD I noticed the NewGrips were super handy for Kettlebells and Dead Lifting Weights as well, I even wore them on the Erg.   I was able to lift heavy and didn’t have that hand crushing feeling that I’d experienced in the past.  Other folks at my gym actually noticed that I was going through my WOD faster, I wasn’t wincing in pain.  NewGrips aren’t good for every part of a WOD of course, during Burpees and Push Ups I was able to quickly rip the hand pads lay them beside me and quickly reattach, it was so nice to not deal with a tug of war with a sweaty glove.

Speaking of sweat, I’ll be the first to admit, I sweat a lot, typically at home I stand with the freezer door open just to regulate my heat.  For folks like me NewGrips are great they have this open backed design, so air can get in between your hand and the pad during a WOD, which eliminates hand sweat.  I found that I was able to grip better with cool, dry hands.  When rowing and doing Kettlebell swings with NewGrip I actually felt like the motions were cooling my hands.

The other benefit I’ve found with NewGrip is that they are the only CrossFit glove I’ve come across that has decent wrist support.  I’ve had a good number of friends get hyper extended wrist injuries doing CrossFit, most of what you’re doing in a WOD requires pressure, and impact on your wrist.  I’d experienced mild to moderate wrist pain, but honestly hadn’t noticed since my blisters had been hurting so much.  With NewGrips my wrist pain was totally gone, and I felt stronger.  After a week, I was doing a few more reps of Pull-Ups and I was lifting a little heavier.   I think this has as much to do with the wrist support as the hand protection.  Either way I was really seeing some benefits from wearing NewGrip CrossFit Gloves.

The main Benefits I’ve found since switching to NewGrip CrossFit Gloves:

• No more blisters or calluses
• No wrist pain
• Better grip on the Pull-Up bar
• A few more reps
• Very little hand sweat
• I can easily remove them between sets

If you’re familiar with the world of CrossFit super athletes then you probably know the name David Goggins.  He is and ex Navy Seal who does extreme feats of fitness for charity.  A few years back he ran a triple marathon to raise money for wounded veterans.  I am fan and was stoked to find this video where he is breaking the Pull Up record for most Pull Ups in a day.  Looking closely you can see that he is wearing a pair of NewGrips, I don’t think anyone is teasing him about wearing gloves at the gym, especially after 4000 Pull Ups in a day!! ‘

I talked the trainer Ben at my CrossFit box into buying a bulk order from NewGrip for other athletes to use in my gym.  He was kind enough to supply us with enough for everyone who was interested and gave away a few pair at impromptu competitions we have at the gym.  Not everyone who uses new grip sings their praises, but most folks who use them have totally eliminated blisters, and sore wrists.  The folks who benefit the most seem to be either folks who have struggled through bouts of terrible blisters and painful torn calluses, or folks who are new to CrossFit and who haven’t built up hand strength to grip a lot of the bars.

I’ve read a bunch on the internet and talked to fellow CrossFitters about how and why CrossFit gloves aren’t allowed in CrossFit competition and I totally get it.  To me though I’d love to train hard going into the comp and enter a CrossFit Games with awesome healthy hands.  I am convinced that NewGrips will allow you to do this.  If you are more of a CrossFit novice like me and just want to go to work, or out on a date not looking like you repair shredders for a living then I would highly recommend NewGrip CrossFit Gloves."

Do I still get teased for wearing gloves at my CrossFit box?  Of course I do.  Since discovering NewGrip CrossFit Gloves I am getting way more out of every WOD and isn’t that what CrossFit is all about?

As a consumer I really like supporting small and local businesses and NewGrip based in Portland Or is a small family run company.  No parts of NewGrip CrossFit gloves are sourced out and they do their best to support their local economy by hiring local business to assemble their gloves.  Also NewGrips are made of vegan and sustainable materials which I think is a nice bonus. -Steven Adler

One of our partner atheletes Kyle Gurkovich has broken several Pull Up records wearing NewGrip Power Pads, doing over 5,000 Pull Ups in 24 hours, without a single blister.