Are gloves allowed in Hyrox?

Yes — HYROX's current rulebook (§10.1, "Clothing and Accessories") lists exactly what's permitted: knee sleeves, gloves, a weightlifting belt, wristbands, hydration packs, and prescribed respiratory devices. Gloves are written explicitly as "Gloves [not grips]," and the same clause states that any item not explicitly listed is prohibited by default. That's the source of the confusion above: a full-coverage racing glove is safely inside the rule, while open-palm, finger-loop CrossFit-style grips aren't on the permitted list at all — technically a gray zone worth confirming with your race director before you rely on them, since the rulebook doesn't spell out how closely that distinction gets checked at gear check-in. Personal chalk is a separate, more tightly policed rule: it's legal only at the sled pull and farmers carry stations, using event-supplied chalk only, with a 2-minute penalty for anything else.

It's mixed and has shifted. Some elite athletes race bare-handed the whole way; others put gloves on only for the sled pull and farmers carry. The trend has moved toward gloves at the sharp end mainly because re-chalking mid-race costs several seconds every time you stop to do it, and that adds up over a full race.

Will gloves hurt my wall ball or rowing performance?

Bulky ones will. That's the entire case for the minimal category over the padded-lifting-glove category — thin, low-profile gloves are designed not to change your feel on the ball or the handle, while thick ones measurably do.

What's the cheapest fix if I don't want to buy anything?

Train your grip instead of buying gear for it. A pull-up bar and a pair of kettlebells at race weight, twice a week, closes most of the gap that gloves are sold to solve — and it also fixes your farmers carry, which no glove can do for you.

Hyrox Gloves: Do You Actually Need Them (And Which Ones Work)

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy through one of these links we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products we have researched or used ourselves. Affiliate income helps keep this site free.

Overview

This guide contains affiliate links — see our disclosure.

No. Most finishers race in nothing but the chalk provided at the venue and never think about their hands again. If you're doing one Hyrox a year for the experience, save your money — train your grip instead and skip this category entirely.

But there's one part of that answer that isn't marketing spin: the sled pull is a rope station, and grip is a documented, measurable limiter there — not something a gear brand invented to sell you a $20 accessory. If you're racing Pro weight, doing multiple events a season, or you already know your hands give out before your legs do, gloves are a legitimate category to consider. The rest of this guide is about knowing which situation you're actually in.

This matches the stance we've taken elsewhere on the site: race in whatever you've trained with, and don't experiment on race day. Switching from bare hands to gloves (or the reverse) the morning of your race changes your grip feel on the rope and the wall ball, and that's a worse trade than just picking a lane in training.

Where Grip Actually Fails

It's not evenly distributed across the race. Across 224,008 recorded Hyrox races, the median sled pull time is 4:41 for Open Men and 5:29 for Open Women — and that station carries the widest time spread of any in the race, because grip endurance, not leg or back strength, is what actually gives out. It typically shows up as a stall on the third or fourth length of rope, not the first. Farmers carry is the other grip station: median 2:02 (Open Men) and 2:10 (Open Women) across the same dataset, with grip and trap endurance — not leg strength — as the limiting factor.

Corey Davis (Core Blend Training) breaks down the sled pull techniques in his tutorial and is blunt about the fastest option: hand-over-hand pulling "is very fast but is very tiring... possibly even impossible" for many athletes to sustain, which is exactly the gap grip aids are built to close.

Compare that to SkiErg, rowing, and wall balls — stations where hand fatigue is rarely the reported bottleneck. That distinction matters for the next section, because it's the argument against wearing gloves for the whole race rather than just the two stations where they earn their keep.

The Three Categories

Nothing, plus venue chalk. The default, and the right call for most Open-division first-timers. The catch: HYROX's rulebook permits chalk at exactly two stations — sled pull and farmers carry — and only the chalk the event itself supplies there; using your own, or using any chalk anywhere else on the floor (wall balls included), is a 2-minute penalty. So there's no "chalk up early and coast" option — the only legal chalk you get is what's waiting fresh at those two stations. Enforcement isn't airtight, either: a widely-discussed moment at HYROX Hamburg in 2025 showed an elite athlete appearing to use personal chalk on camera, and Race Direction ruled there was no conclusive evidence to act on — so don't assume every venue polices this the same way.

Minimal racing gloves. Thin, breathable, sticky-palm gloves you put on before the gun and forget about — not weightlifting gloves. Real options on the market right now: HyGloves' Race Day Gloves 1.0 (roughly £15–20 at the time of writing), Gloovz's Racer 1.0 (roughly £20–25 at the time of writing — sizes have sold out before, so check current stock), and The Rox Guys' GLVZ fingerless race gloves on Amazon (check the listing for current price and size availability) — all built specifically around sled pull and farmers carry grip. The genuinely cheap version of this category is a hardware-store hack: a roughly $6–10 pair of Wells Lamont women's gardening gloves gets you a snug, sticky-palmed fit for a fraction of the price — a tip that's circulated among Hyrox coaches specifically for farmers carry and sled pull.

Full padded lifting gloves. Skip these. The padding that protects your palms on a barbell gets in the way of catching a wall ball cleanly and feeling the SkiErg or rower handle, and your hands overheat in them across a 75–120 minute race. This is also where "grips" — the open-palm, finger-loop style sold for CrossFit (Picsil's Azor and Heron models are examples) — get confusing: they solve the same problem as a glove but aren't the same category, and the rulebook doesn't treat them identically — see the FAQ below for the exact clause.

What To Train Instead

Grip is one of the fastest-responding adaptations in training — most athletes see real improvement in 4–6 weeks. Two sessions a week is enough: dead hangs from a pull-up bar, farmers carries at or above race weight, and rope-pull simulations if your gym has the equipment. Full session breakdowns are on our sled pull training page and farmers carry training page. If you'd rather fix the actual limiter than buy a workaround for it, this is the higher-leverage move for anyone racing more than once.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are gloves allowed in Hyrox?: Yes — HYROX's current rulebook (§10.1, "Clothing and Accessories") lists exactly what's permitted: knee sleeves, gloves, a weightlifting belt, wristbands, hydration packs, and prescribed respiratory devices. Gloves are written explicitly as "Gloves [not grips]," and the same clause states that any item not explicitly listed is prohibited by default. That's the source of the confusion above: a full-coverage racing glove is safely inside the rule, while open-palm, finger-loop CrossFit-style grips aren't on the permitted list at all — technically a gray zone worth confirming with your race director before you rely on them, since the rulebook doesn't spell out how closely that distinction gets checked at gear check-in. Personal chalk is a separate, more tightly policed rule: it's legal only at the sled pull and farmers carry stations, using event-supplied chalk only, with a 2-minute penalty for anything else.
Do pros wear gloves?: It's mixed and has shifted. Some elite athletes race bare-handed the whole way; others put gloves on only for the sled pull and farmers carry. The trend has moved toward gloves at the sharp end mainly because re-chalking mid-race costs several seconds every time you stop to do it, and that adds up over a full race.
Will gloves hurt my wall ball or rowing performance?: Bulky ones will. That's the entire case for the minimal category over the padded-lifting-glove category — thin, low-profile gloves are designed not to change your feel on the ball or the handle, while thick ones measurably do.
What's the cheapest fix if I don't want to buy anything?: Train your grip instead of buying gear for it. A pull-up bar and a pair of kettlebells at race weight, twice a week, closes most of the gap that gloves are sold to solve — and it also fixes your farmers carry, which no glove can do for you.