Gymnastics grips should fit snugly against your palm with no loose material, and the finger holes should hold the leather in place without sliding down past your knuckles. A proper fit means the wrist strap is firm, the leather sits under tension when you’re on the bar, and there’s just enough excess material below your fingers to form a small fold. Getting this right affects both your performance and your safety, so the details matter.
How to Measure Your Hand
The measurement method depends on the brand you’re buying. Most manufacturers, including Reichel and IWA Goldline, ask you to measure from the base of your palm (the first skin fold at your wrist) to the base of your middle finger. Bailie and Reisport, on the other hand, size their bar grips from the base of your palm to the tip of your longest finger. Beginner palm grips from any brand typically use the shorter measurement, base of palm to base of middle finger.
Use a flexible tape measure or a ruler placed flat against your palm. Measure in centimeters if the brand’s size chart calls for it, since rounding errors in inches can bump you into the wrong size. If you’re between sizes, most gymnasts do better going with the smaller option. A grip that’s slightly small can be adjusted; one that’s too large creates slack that’s harder to fix and more dangerous on the bar.
Where the Finger Holes Should Sit
Finger hole placement is different for palm grips versus dowel grips. On palm grips (the type without a dowel rod), the holes should reach to the base of your fingers, right where the fingers meet the palm. On dowel grips, the holes should sit between your top and middle knuckles. If the leather extends past this point and covers most of your fingers, the grip is too long and you’ll lose your feel for the bar.
A common sign that finger holes are too big: the grips slide down the fingers past where they should sit, making it hard to maintain contact with the bar. One gymnast parent on the ChalkBucket forum described her daughter’s grips covering her whole hand, leaving her unable to get a solid feel on the apparatus. If you notice the leather shifting during swings or transitions, the finger holes likely need to be smaller or the grip size itself is wrong.
The Leather Fold Below Your Fingers
When you put on a properly sized grip, there should be enough excess leather below the finger holes to form a small S-shaped fold that sits directly beneath your fingers. This fold is what actually grabs the bar. It should protrude slightly, staying flexible enough to wrap around the bar without bunching up into a thick lump in your palm.
Too much excess leather creates bunching that shifts your hand position and reduces control. Too little means the fold can’t form at all, and you lose the mechanical advantage grips are designed to provide. When you chalk up and grab the bar, that fold should feel like a natural extension of your grip, not something you’re fighting against.
Why Wrist Strap Tension Matters
The wrist strap does more than keep the grip attached to your hand. When grips function correctly, much of the force from swinging transfers into the strap rather than into your palm. This is the entire point of wearing grips: redistributing load away from the skin that’s most vulnerable to rips and blisters.
For this to work, there can’t be slack between the wrist strap, the grip material, and the bar. Loose material means your palm absorbs the load directly, which defeats the purpose. Before each session, secure the wrist strap firmly. When you jump to the bar, position your knuckles up and over so the grip material pulls taut. The goal is to place the bar as close to the wrist strap as possible, creating a line of tension from bar to strap. If you can feel the leather flapping or shifting on your palm mid-routine, the strap isn’t tight enough or you’re not positioning your hands correctly on the mount.
Different Apparatus, Different Grips
Grips are designed for specific events, and the fit requirements change with each one. Uneven bar grips are designed for women and have two finger holes. Men’s high bar grips have three finger holes with a thin dowel, while rings grips have two finger holes with a thicker dowel. These are not interchangeable. Wearing rings grips on the high bar, or the reverse, is a safety risk because the dowel thickness and finger hole count affect how the grip locks onto each type of apparatus.
Male gymnasts need two separate pairs: one for high bar and one for rings. Each pair should be sized and broken in independently, since the hand position and force patterns differ between the two events.
Adjusting Finger Holes Safely
New grips sometimes have finger holes that feel slightly too tight. Rather than forcing your fingers through (which can tear or distort the leather), you can widen the holes gradually using sandpaper wrapped around a pencil. Start with a coarse grit and sand very slowly, checking the fit on your fingers frequently. Sand evenly around the entire hole so it doesn’t become lopsided.
This is a one-direction process: you can always remove more material, but you can’t add it back. If the holes become too large, the grips are no longer safe to use. Once you reach the right diameter, switch to a finer grit sandpaper to smooth out the edges and prevent rough spots from irritating your skin. The whole process takes patience, but it’s far better than ending up with grips that slide during a release move.
Signs Your Grips Don’t Fit
A few clear indicators that something is off:
- Leather slides past your knuckles during use. The finger holes are too large or the grip length is too long for your hand.
- You can’t feel the bar. Too much material is covering your hand, dulling the tactile feedback you need for timing releases and catches.
- The fold bunches into a thick wad. The grip is too long. That excess leather compresses between your palm and the bar, creating an unstable contact point.
- The wrist strap rides up toward your hand. The strap may be too loose, or the overall grip length is too short, pulling the strap out of position.
- You’re getting rips in new places. Poorly fitting grips shift friction to parts of your palm that aren’t conditioned for it. If you’re tearing in spots you never used to, the fit has changed or the grips need replacing.
New grips will feel stiff and slightly awkward for the first few sessions. That’s normal. What shouldn’t happen is slipping, bunching, or loss of bar feel. If those problems persist after a break-in period, the size is wrong rather than the leather just being new.