Do you actually need grip gloves?

Nobody makes you buy grip gloves. No studio turns you away at the door for showing up bare-handed, and plenty of very strong people never own a pair. So if you're going to spend $24, you should know exactly what they do — and what they don't.

What actually goes wrong without them

The handlebars are the part of the machine nobody warns you about. They're smooth, they're metal, and about eight minutes in, your hands are wet.

Here's what that costs you. In anything loaded through your arms — plank on the carriage, bear, French twists, any pull where the springs are doing real work — your hands are the only thing connecting you to the resistance. When they start to slip, you don't let go. You squeeze harder. And squeezing harder pulls your forearms and shoulders in to fix a problem your grip created, so your form is compromised.

So you come out of your move early. Not because your core gave out. Because your hands did.

There's a slower version of this too: calluses, and hands that ache the next morning from white-knuckling a metal bar for forty-five minutes. And there's the one nobody says out loud — every bar and strap in the room gets held by a lot of sweaty hands in a day. A glove is a layer between your palm and all of that, and it's one you take home and wash.

What grip gloves fix, and what they don't

They fix hand slide, and they take the edge off a narrow bar pressing into your palm. That's the job.

They won't fix your form, they won't make a hold easier, and they do nothing for your feet — separate problem, separate purchase.

None of this is Lagree-specific, either. Reformer and mat Pilates, barre, anything in a hot room, and any kind of strength training put you in the same spot: long sets where your hands quit before the muscle you were actually working does.

I'd also be a little suspicious of a glove that's basically an oven mitt with grip on it. What you want is grip where your hand meets the bar — across the palm and the base of the fingers — and as little material as possible everywhere else. A thick glove makes your hands sweat more, which is the thing you were trying to solve. Ours are a thin neoprene upper with a microfiber suede palm, because suede holds when it's damp.

Strapped or strapless

Two versions, and the difference is real.

SIREN Grip Gloves — $24. Adjustable Velcro wrist strap, one size, S/M. The strap keeps the glove from creeping when you're pulling hard. In Crimson, Sky, Seashell and Abyss.

SIREN Mini Grip Gloves — $21. Strapless, with lightly padded palm cushions, in Small and Medium. Less glove, more hand. In Midnight, Mist and Blush.

If you're torn: the strap earns its keep when you're pulling hard and often. If that's not your class, the Mini is plenty of glove.

How to tell if yours are working

Halfway through the longest arm set, notice what you're thinking about. If it's your hands, they're not doing their job.

That's why we sell them the way we do: wear them, take them to a real class, and if they don't grip the way you hoped, email us within 15 days and we'll send store credit or a replacement. Nothing needs to come back. There's no way to judge a grip glove standing in your kitchen, so we don't ask you to.

Mandy MacDonald is a certified Lagree instructor at Lagree NY in Astoria, New York, and the founder of SOLEMETHOD.