Types of Gym Grips: The Complete Guide

Search "gym grips" and you'll get seven different products that solve seven different problems, all wearing the same name. Palm pads, gymnastic grips, straps, strap hybrids, lifting hooks, thick grips and dual-panel grips all get called gym grips, and half the accessory-drawer regret in lifting comes from buying the right category with the wrong tool. This guide sorts the whole landscape, covering what each type actually does, who it's for, and where it falls short.

Quick answer: gym grips fall into seven types. Palm pads and gymnastic grips protect skin. Lifting straps, grip-strap hybrids like Versa Gripps, and lifting hooks help you hold heavier pulls. Thick grips, the Fat Gripz style, overload your forearms. Dual-panel grips, the newest type, are multi-purpose performance grips built for both pressing and pulling. The right type depends on whether your problem is skin, grip endurance, forearm growth, or rep quality.

Palm pads and grip pads

The simplest type is a piece of rubber or neoprene between palm and bar. They do one job, stopping knurling from chewing your hands, and do it adequately. What they don't do is anything for performance. There's no stability benefit, no help with how force moves, and they can slip on sweaty pulls. Best for: casual lifters whose only complaint is skin. Weakness: purely passive protection.

Gymnastic and cross-training grips

Leather or synthetic panels that strap to the wrist and cover the palm and fingers, built for high-rep bar work like pull-ups, toes-to-bar and kipping movements. In their home territory they're the right tool, protecting against rips over big volumes of hanging work. On general gym training they're out of place, since the wrist strap and finger holes are designed for swinging on a bar, not pressing or machine work. Best for: CrossFit-style training. Weakness: not designed for barbell, dumbbell or machine lifting.

Lifting straps

Long loops of cotton, nylon or leather that wrap around your wrist and then wind around the bar, so your grip stops being the limit on pulls like deadlifts, rows and shrugs. In experienced hands they do more than stop grip failure. With grip taken out of the equation, a sensible lifter can hold heavier weight with better control and keep the forearms fresh for the rest of the session. The honest caveat is cultural rather than mechanical. Most lifters chasing size use straps to pull more weight than they can actually control, which turns a precision tool into an ego tool. Best for: heavy pulling, used with a load you can own. Weakness: pulls only, and a wrapping ritual every set. Full breakdown in gym grips vs lifting straps.

Grip-strap hybrids (Versa Gripps)

Arguably the biggest name in the grip space. A wrist strap anchors a shorter, thicker piece of material that folds over the bar, giving you strap-level support without the long tail of fabric to wind every set. They're quicker to set up than traditional straps, they don't get in the way as much, they're comfortable, and in experienced hands the extra security genuinely translates into heavier pulls with better control. They remain a pulling tool, though. Pressing gets nothing from a wrist-anchored design, and the same ego trap that follows straps follows hybrids. Best for: strap benefits without the strap ritual on pull day. Weakness: pulls only. Full comparison in PUMPZ vs Versa Gripps.

Lifting hooks

A metal or heavy-duty hook on a wrist strap that the bar sits in, so your hand barely grips at all. Even more load-focused than straps, even less carryover, since your grip does almost nothing. In our experience lifting hooks are also awkward to live with. The hook comes in one standard shape and size, and hands don't, so depending on your hand it digs in, sits proud, or just gets in the way of a natural grip. Best for: lifters working around hand injuries, or shrug and pull specialists. Weakness: your hands stop training entirely, and one size fits nobody perfectly.

Thick grips (Fat Gripz)

Fat Gripz started this category, and the brand name has all but replaced the generic term. Thick rubber sleeves convert a normal bar to 50mm or more, deliberately making it harder to hold, and as a forearm and crushing-grip overload tool they do exactly what they promise. Where lifters go wrong is running them on everything. EMG research found the thicker handle cuts usable loads dramatically and, on the compound pulls tested, reduced activation in the muscles most lifters assume they're helping. A specialist tool with a real purpose, best kept in its lane. Best for: dedicated forearm and grip sessions. Weakness: costs load and target-muscle stimulus everywhere else. Full breakdown in gym grips vs Fat Gripz.

Dual-panel gym grips

Full disclosure, dual-panel is a term we coined at LIFTLABZ, because nothing above described what we'd built. PUMPZ is a multi-purpose performance grip, and the dual is the point. One panel is shaped for pressing, spreading force across the palm for a stable platform, and one for pulling, a flat panel with a small arch you hook your fingers over so you pull through your elbows and the target muscle does the work. Almost everything else on this list is built for pulling only.

The other difference is that you still hold the weight. Nothing straps to your wrist and nothing wraps the bar for you, so your grip keeps working honestly while the panel improves how the handle sits in your hand, how force transfers, and how well each rep connects. It's built for rep quality rather than for chasing maximal loads, and if you do want strap support on your heaviest pulls, PUMPZ pairs with traditional long lasso straps. It attaches to barbells, dumbbells, machines and cables, positions multiple ways for different hands, covers the callus zone, and carries a lifetime guarantee on the rubber. Best for: hypertrophy training, rep quality, press and pull. Weakness: for absolute 1RM pulls, strap tools still hold more weight.

Every type of gym grip compared

Which type of gym grip do you need?

Work backwards from your actual problem. Torn or callused hands and nothing else? Palm pads, or note that some performance grips cover this too. High-rep bar work? Gymnastic grips. Grip failing before your back on heavy pulls? Straps, or a Versa-style hybrid if you want the support without the wrapping ritual, or lifting hooks if you can't grip at all. Forearms lagging and you want them overloaded? Thick grips, used sparingly. Reps that don't connect, meaning pressing that feels unstable, rows you feel in your forearms instead of your lats, curls that turn into a grip fight? That's a contact-quality problem, and PUMPZ is the tool built for it.

Many experienced lifters run two, keeping a strap tool for the heaviest pulls and a dual-panel grip for everything else in the session. If gloves are on your shortlist too, read gym grips vs workout gloves.

FAQ

PUMPZ, the original dual-panel gym grip. Lifetime guarantee on the rubber. Shop PUMPZ →