Top 10 CrossFit Gloves For Pull Ups Reviewed and Rated

The way your gloves fit you is probably the most important thing about them, before everything else. This is because an ill-fitting glove can mean the difference between a successful session at the gym and a hurt wrist or palms, or even worse.

The gloves protect your palms from getting torn up and damaged when you exercise. As you work out, your palms will get sweaty and you will begin to lose your grip on the bar, which is what you don’t want to happen when you need to pull up your own bodyweight! This is why you need a pair of pull up gloves - one that fits you well! An ill-fitting pair can either constrict your movement too much, or it can be too loose and distract you from what you’re supposed to be doing. The fit will be affected by the features, padding, the style of the gloves, and the material. You can either have gloves or grips when you do pull-ups, but your better option is the grips. This is because the gloves can constrict your fingers too much, not letting them move. Grips, on the other hand, will only cover your palm, which is what you need to have protected in order to do a proper pull-up. The leather strip covering your palms must not be tight - it has to be loose, in fact, it has to be so loose that you might even wonder whether the grips are too big for you or not. This is because that bit of material that is loose needs to wrap around the pole, essentially padding your palms. There is a mix between gloves and grips - fingerless, yet with wrist wraps and pads on the palm area. The wrist wraps are there to secure the gloves around your hands. They must be tight, but they shouldn’t restrict your movement, so be careful when you adjust your wraps, always make sure to test the fit beforehand.

If you have grips with finger holes, chances are that they are too tight around your fingers. This is normal, and the holes will stretch out over time. But whatever you do, do not pull, stretch or cut the holes, because this will make the tear! You can try pulling a sharpie or a thicker pencil through the holes, and then carefully work on stretching them out. Concentrate on stretching out the bottom of the holes, not the top part. If your grips are too rigid, they need to be broken in. You can try softening them up, by rolling them around with your hands. Wear them for shorter periods of time, preferably before you head to the gym so that they have the time to mold to the shape of your palms and fingers. Your grips, or gloves, will need at least two or three days to be broken in completely, so do not worry if they do not fit you to the tee when you first buy them!

Now let’s talk about how effective gloves and grips really are and do you need them or not. Some fitness enthusiasts believe that by using weightlifting gloves for working out is cheating. This is because you have that little bit of extra help that keeps you going, as opposed to not wearing gloves at all. Others believe that gloves will weaken your grip, and make you too attached to them. What you decide to do in the end will depend on what your goals are.

You can usually tell whether a person lifts or does pull-ups by looking at their hands. Their palms will be riddled with calluses, blisters, or maybe even wounds. Although none of these things are life-threatening, they are definitely bothersome and can be quite painful if left untreated. No one wants their hands to be rough and damaged, and doing mundane tasks, let alone doing pull-ups, is very difficult when pain shoots through the palms of your hands when you move around even just a little bit.

Also, you have your wrists to think about as well. Your wrists are the thinnest area on your body. There isn’t that much developing to be done on them, as they do not have a lot of muscle surrounding them in the first place. You can develop them to the max very easily, and fast. The straps of your gloves and grips will wrap around them and support them, giving them a break, reducing muscle fatigue. The wraps also keep the muscles and surrounding tissues compact and bunched up together, allowing them to work in unison.

And we have a problem with sweating. You will inevitably sweat when you work out, and your palms are one of the sweatiest areas on your body so you will sweat, a lot. This will make your palms prune up, and prune sweaty palms do not have a good grip, so you risk slipping down from the bar! At one moment you could be happy doing pull-ups, and the next thing you know, you’ve suddenly slipped and fallen down! The texture of your gloves will always give you a grippy surface, and the material will wick the sweat away, keeping you both dry and safe.

But, what about the potential drawbacks? Truth be told, your grip won’t be able to develop that much when you have grips or gloves on. This is because that extra strip of material prevents your hands from gripping the bar firmly, so you don’t get to use your full power. Also, some argue that the grips and gloves prevent you from keeping proper form, and pull-ups are all about proper form, and so is every form of working out. Furthermore, you lose the ability to actually feel what you are gripping. This is not so important when you do pull-ups, but it bothers some people enough that they drop the whole idea of gloves. The good thing is, this is true for gloves, most of the time. Grips will not impact your session so much, and they will only benefit you, keeping you safe and strong!

Your gloves need to allow your skin to breathe. They also need to allow your palms to perspire, since this is a basic body function to help cool you down. If your gloves do not allow your skin to breathe, you can develop some nasty rashes and infections, or you can just become sweatier and smellier, and no one wants that!

The breathability of your gloves and their moisture-wicking properties will be largely affected by the material they are made out of, and by their construction. Leather gloves are definitely the sturdiest, but if they are solid leather, your hands may not breathe too well, and leather does not wick away moisture naturally. This is why usually the surface of your gloves is made out of leather, or the gripping area, while the part closest to your palms is made out of a different material that breathes well and keeps sweat at bay. Fingerless gloves and grips are the best regarding breathability since they leave most of your fingers or palms exposed to air so they can function properly. Mesh inserts and ventilation holes also help the airflow over your skin, to gently cool you down and keep the sweat at bay. So make sure that your gloves are breathable, and you won’t have issues with bad smells and other sweat-related issues!

Flexible gloves are vital to your progress. Imagine putting on a pair of rigid gloves that immobilize you, and then attempting to actually do something with them. Impossible, right? A pair that is too stiff will not allow your fingers or your wrists to move properly, which can cause aching, joint pain, and even injuries caused by bad form.

The flexibility of your gloves depends on what the material used to create them is, and what the model of the gloves is. Leather gloves will be stiff, but only for a little while. Just like leather shoes, they need to be broken in before they soften up and mold to the shape of your hands. But gloves or grips will never be made out of leather solely because that is pricey, and not too convenient. They usually have mesh or polyester panels or inserts, and since both of these materials are quite flexible, the gloves will be flexible too. This brings us to grips. Grips are naturally flexible - the patch of material under your palms needs to be able to bend, so you can fold it under your palms and then place it around the whole circumference of the bars. The wrist wraps are bendy and flexible too, and the only problem is the finger holes, which do get stretched out over time, so that’s all fine and dandy too. So if you want super stretchy gloves, go for ones that have velcro or mesh inserts, and if you want to feel like you basically have nothing strapped to your hands, grips are the way to go.

What your gloves are made out of says a lot about them. The material they are made out of will affect almost every aspect of your gloves - the breathability, flexibility, comfort, weight, and even fit, so what you choose may as well impact the quality of your exercise.

Most of the gloves and grips are made out of some leather variety, be it genuine or synthetic. These two do not differ so much. Real leather will be heavier, sturdier and stiffer, and of course, it will not be cheap. Synthetic leather is vegan and vegetarian-friendly, it can withstand a lot of damage, and it’s much cheaper to produce, but it’s not so durable, and it tends to peel, but that shouldn’t worry you that much. No matter what kind of leather your gloves are made out of, the construction will determine their fate in the end. Thin leather or any kind of fabric will not be able to survive constant abuse and pulling and tearing. Nylon and neoprene are also common, but they are not so grippy like leather is, and maybe more suited for lifting gloves. So your best bet is leather, but don’t be afraid to give other options a go!