Where should I put my hands on the HYROX sled push?

High on the uprights with long arms, body low and angled behind the sled. Hands too low forces you upright and kills your drive; hands too wide loses power.

What is the best technique for the sled pull?

Sit your weight back and let your bodyweight do the work rather than pulling with your arms. Take long hand-over-hand pulls, keep tension on the rope, and use your legs to drive back.

Is chalk allowed in HYROX?

The rulebook permits chalk on the sled pull and the farmers carry, and it must be the chalk the event provides. You cannot bring your own or carry it between stations. Check the current rulebook for your race and division.

Why do my hands slip on the sled pull?

Sweat. Rope grip is fine when you are dry, but by the time the sled pull comes around your hands are soaked and the rope slides. That is when people lose time and tear skin.

Do gloves help on the sled push?

Not really. The push is a legs and position station, not a hand station, so gloves neither help nor hurt. Save the grip question for the sled pull, where it genuinely decides time.

How to Get a Better Grip on the Sled Push and Pull

The push is legs and position. The pull is where your grip and your skin get wrecked. What actually works on each, and what just wastes your energy.

The two sled stations sit back to back in the middle of the race, and people lump them together. They should not. The push is a legs and position station. The pull is the one that wrecks your hands, tearing your palms on the rope while your grip is already fading. Here is what actually works on each, and what is just wasted effort.

Sled push: this is not a hand station

Nobody fails the sled push because of their hands. You fail it because your legs stall or your position is wrong. Your hands just sit on the uprights and hold you connected to the sled. If you are worrying about grip here, you are worrying about the wrong thing, so put your attention on position instead.

What actually moves the sled:

Get low and stay behind it. Long arms, body angled, hips down. Standing tall turns the sled into a wall.
Hands high on the uprights. Gripping low forces you upright and robs your drive.
Short, choppy steps. Constant contact with the floor beats long strides. Long strides are where people stall out and have to restart a dead sled.
Never fully stop. Restarting a stationary loaded sled costs far more energy than keeping it creeping forward.

Sled pull: this is the one that wrecks hands

The pull is the most grip- and skin-intensive station in the race, and it arrives when your hands are already soaked. This is where people slip, stall, and lose 30 seconds they never get back.

Use your bodyweight, not your arms. Sit back and let your weight fall away from the sled. Pulling with your arms burns your grip and moves the sled less.
Long pulls, not short tugs. Fewer, bigger hand-over-hand pulls mean fewer grip resets, and every reset costs you.
Keep tension on the rope. Letting it go slack means re-accelerating dead weight on every pull.
Drive with your legs. Feet planted, push the floor away as you pull. Your legs have far more left than your forearms do.

The wet-hands problem

Here is what nobody tells first-timers: everything above works fine when your hands are dry, and starts failing when they are not. By the sled pull you are drenched. Wet rope slides through your fingers, so you squeeze harder to hold on, and that over-squeezing is what actually drains your grip. It is a moisture problem masquerading as a strength problem. More on why your forearms give out here.

Your options are limited, and each has a catch:

Chalk. Helps when dry, but availability varies by venue and it does nothing for rope burn. Do not build a plan around chalk being there.
Wiping on your shorts. Buys you a few seconds. By this point in the race your kit is soaked too.
Gloves. The only option that handles grip and skin at once and does not wear off mid-race, but only if they actually hold when wet. Most do not.

If you go with gloves, this is what matters

On the pull, a bad glove is worse than bare hands. What to look for:

A palm that still grips once your hands are sweating, not just in the shop. Test it warm and sweaty, not under a tap.
Thin, not padded. You need feel on the rope. Cushion costs you control.
A secure fit that will not slide off your hand when you relax your grip under load.
Breathable, or your hands will just get wetter and you are back where you started.

This is precisely the problem we started Sled & Stone to fix. In our first race the sleds came down to grip, and everything we tried either went slick when wet or cooked our hands. If you are still deciding, read our honest take on whether you need gloves, or ask the free AI HYROX coach about your own weak stations.