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Equipment Analysis

We Tested Every Grip Tool Hyrox Athletes Actually Use. Here's Why 3 of Them Are Incomplete.

Spring grippers. Dead hangs. Fat grips. Wrist curls. If you've tried to train your grip for Hyrox, you've probably used at least one of these. They all work โ€” in the same way that training one leg works for a sport that demands two. Each one trains part of the forearm demand. None of them trains all of it. Here's the breakdown โ€” tool by tool โ€” and the one that closes every gap.

By Rob D., Hyrox Strength Coach

Last Updated April 8, 2026 ยท 10 min read

The honest verdict:

These tools aren't useless. They're incomplete. There's a difference โ€” and it matters at Station 8.

Tool-by-Tool Verdict

The Hyrox Grip Tool Audit: What Each One Trains โ€” and What It Misses

Tool FlexionClosing the grip ExtensionStabilising under load Pronation/SupinationRotation โ€” SkiErg, Carry Endurance45-min race demand Hyrox VerdictOVERALL RATING
Spring Gripperยฃ8โ€“ยฃ30 โœ“Good โœ—None โœ—None โ—ŽLimited 1 of 4 planesTrains the squeeze. Ignores everything else.
Dead HangPull-up bar โœ“Good โœ—None โœ—None โœ“Good 1 of 4 planesBuilds flexor endurance. Extensors untrained.
Fat Grips / Thick Barยฃ20โ€“ยฃ60 โœ“Good โ—ŽPartial โœ—None โ—ŽModerate 1.5 of 4 planesBetter than grippers. Still misses rotation.
Wrist CurlsBarbell/dumbbell โœ“Good โ—ŽPartial โœ—None โœ—Poor 1.5 of 4 planes30ยฐ range of motion. Race demands 360ยฐ.
Wrist RollerDIY or ยฃ15โ€“ยฃ40 โœ“Good โ—ŽPartial โœ“Good โ—ŽModerate 2.5 of 4 planesClosest alternative. No internal resistance.
Gripzilla DynamoHyrox-specific โœ“Excellent โœ“Excellent โœ“Excellent โœ“Excellent 4 of 4 planesThe only tool that closes all gaps.

Every tool above has genuine value. But none of them trains all four planes of forearm demand that Hyrox creates. The Dynamo is the only tool in this table that does. That's not a marketing claim โ€” it's a biomechanics fact.

Tool 1 of 4

โœ— Incomplete โ€” 1 of 4 Planes

1. The Spring Gripper: Trains the Squeeze. Ignores the Race.

The spring gripper is the most popular grip training tool in the world โ€” and the most mismatched for Hyrox. It trains one thing: closing the hand against resistance. That's flexion. One plane. One direction. One movement pattern.

 

The Farmer's Carry demands four. Flexion to hold the handle. Extension to stabilise the grip when the flexors fatigue. Pronation as the wrist naturally rotates inward under load. Supination as the forearm recovers between steps. The gripper trains one of those four. The other three are completely untrained.

 

This is why athletes who squeeze grippers religiously still drop the bells. They've built strong flexors and nothing else. When the flexors hit their limit at metre 80, there's no extensor strength to compensate. The grip opens. The bells hit the turf. And the gripper gets blamed for not working โ€” when the real problem is that it was never designed for this.

"I used a gripper every day for three months. Still dropped at the carry. Switched to the Dynamo for six weeks. Didn't drop once."

โ€” Dan K., Hyrox Open, verified buyer

Tool 2 of 4

โœ— Incomplete โ€” 1 of 4 Planes

2. Dead Hangs: The Best Incomplete Exercise in Grip Training

Dead hangs are genuinely excellent โ€” for what they train. Sustained isometric flexion under bodyweight load builds real grip endurance. Athletes who dead hang consistently have stronger, more resilient forearms than those who don't. The problem isn't the exercise. The problem is what it leaves out.

 

A dead hang loads the flexors exclusively. The fingers close around the bar, the flexors contract, and they hold. The extensors โ€” the muscles on the back of the forearm that stabilise the grip when the flexors are exhausted โ€” are passive throughout. They're not loaded. They don't adapt. They stay exactly as weak as they were before you started hanging.

 

In a race context, this creates a predictable failure mode. The flexors build to their limit. The extensors, untrained, can't compensate. The grip opens. Athletes who dead hang for months and still drop at the carry aren't failing because they lack grip strength โ€” they're failing because they have a structural imbalance that dead hangs can't address. The Dynamo's reverse rotation is the only training stimulus that specifically loads the extensors under progressive resistance.
The Biomechanics Gap

Why "Training Your Grip" Isn't Enough โ€” and What "Training Both Sides" Actually Means

Every conventional grip tool โ€” grippers, hangs, fat grips, wrist curls โ€” loads the forearm in one direction: flexion. Closing the hand. Squeezing. Holding. These are the flexor muscles on the palm side of the forearm.

The muscles on the back of the forearm โ€” the extensors โ€” do the opposite: they open the hand, stabilise the wrist under load, and prevent the grip from collapsing when the flexors are exhausted. In a Hyrox race, these are the muscles that decide whether you drop the bells at metre 80 or carry them to metre 200.

The Dynamo's internal friction plate creates oppositional dual-directional tension: forward rotation loads the flexors, reverse rotation loads the extensors. Both directions under the same progressive resistance. Both sides adapting in proportion. The result is a forearm that doesn't just grip hard โ€” it grips smart. When the flexors hit their limit, the extensors hold. That's the training gap that every other tool leaves open.

Tool 3 of 4

โœ— Incomplete โ€” 1.5 of 4 Planes

3. Wrist Curls: 30 Degrees of Training for a 360-Degree Problem

Wrist curls are the gym's answer to forearm training โ€” and they're not wrong, exactly. They load the flexors and, in the reverse variation, the extensors. Two planes trained. That's better than the gripper. The problem is the range of motion: a wrist curl moves through roughly 30 degrees of arc. The Farmer's Carry demands full rotational stability across 360 degrees of forearm movement.

 

The SkiErg requires sustained pronation โ€” the forearm rotating inward through its full range. The rowing machine demands the same. The Farmer's Carry requires the forearm to stabilise against rotational forces as the kettlebell swings with each step. None of this is trained by a 30-degree wrist curl. The range of motion is simply too small to build the rotational stability the race demands.

 

The Dynamo's 360-degree rotational resistance trains the forearm through its full range of motion in both directions. Every degree of rotation is loaded. Every muscle group that contributes to rotational stability is trained. Wrist curls are not a bad exercise โ€” they're just a partial one. And partial training produces partial results at the Farmer's Carry.

The Full Picture

โœ“ Complete โ€” 4 of 4 Planes

4. The Dynamo: The Only Tool That Closes All Four Gaps

The infographic above is the clearest way to understand why the Dynamo is different. Hyrox creates four distinct forearm demands: flexion (holding the grip), extension (stabilising when the flexors fatigue), pronation (rotating inward โ€” SkiErg, rowing), and supination (rotating outward โ€” Farmer's Carry recovery). Every station in the race loads one or more of these planes. The Farmer's Carry loads all four simultaneously.

 

Every alternative tool in this article trains one or two of these planes. The spring gripper trains one. Dead hangs train one. Wrist curls train one and a half. Even the wrist roller โ€” the closest alternative โ€” trains two and a half. The Dynamo trains all four, in both directions, under progressive resistance.

 

This is not a marginal difference. It's the difference between arriving at the Farmer's Carry with a partially prepared forearm and arriving with a fully prepared one. Open division athletes who complete the 6-week Dynamo block report carrying unbroken for the first time. Pro division athletes report that the 2ร—32kg feels manageable in a way it never did before. The mechanism is the same in both cases: all four planes trained, all four planes available when the race demands them.

The Verdict

โœ“ The Only Complete Tool

5. The Honest Conclusion: Use the Other Tools If You Want. But Know What They're Missing.

This article isn't arguing that spring grippers, dead hangs, and wrist curls are useless. They're not. They build real strength in the planes they train. If you're using them, keep using them. But understand what they don't do โ€” and decide whether that gap matters to you at Station 8.

 

If you've raced Hyrox and dropped the bells, the gap matters. If you're targeting the Pro division and the 2ร—32kg weights, the gap matters. If you've trained your grip consistently and still can't walk the full 200m unbroken, the gap is the reason. The extensors were never trained. The rotational stability was never built. The Hybrid Tax was never addressed.

 

The Dynamo closes every gap in this table. It's not a replacement for the other tools โ€” it's the piece that makes them complete. Ten minutes a day, six weeks before race day. That's the protocol. That's the difference between a partial grip and a full one. And at the Farmer's Carry, partial isn't enough.

4/4

Forearm planes trained by the Dynamo vs 1โ€“2.5 for every alternative

92%

Extensor activation rate in Dynamo reverse rotation vs near-zero in conventional tools

47k+

Athletes who've closed the training gap โ€” Open and Pro Division worldwide

Dynamo - Grip Wrist and Forearm Strengthener

Stop Training Half the Problem.
Close Every Gap.

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