Sports Chalk Is Your Secret Weapon for Lifting More Weight.

If you’ve ever seen someone draw with chalk before doing a big deadlift, perhaps throwing a big cloud of the thing into the air, you might wonder if it actually does anything at all. But chalk is a useful tool if you lift weights, so let’s dive in and talk about when you’ll need it and how to use it.

What exactly is lifting chalk?

Sports chalk is made from the mineral magnesium carbonate. It is used by gymnasts, rock climbers and weightlifters to absorb sweat from their hands and increase friction between their hands and whatever they are holding (barbell, climbing grips, etc.).

There are other types of chalk in the world, but they are not interchangeable. Standard blackboard chalk is calcium carbonate, while sidewalk chalk is usually calcium sulfate. If you want to buy chalk for your home gym or carry it with you in your gym bag, make sure you have gym chalk.

How chalk helps you lift more weight

The main reason people use chalk in the gym is because a better grip on the barbell helps you lift more. You’ll see chalk most often used in pulling exercises, such as deadlifts, or exercises that involve pulling, such as snatches and cleans.

Chalk adds a little grit between your sweaty hand and the bar you’re holding, and that’s where its magic lies: the combination of sweat and chalk provides a much more secure grip than if you held the same bar without the chalk. As a result:

• Chalk reduces hand sweating.
• Chalk helps increase friction between your hand and the bar, making your grip more secure.
• An improved grip will allow you to hold the barbell or equipment without slipping, which can mean less chance of losing your grip and failing to lift.
• This improved grip makes the bar or equipment less likely to rub against your skin, reducing the likelihood of a callus tearing, but there’s a big caveat here that we’ll get to in a moment.

Simply put, if you draw your hands with chalk, you will find it easier to hold onto things. Sometimes the limiting factor in increasing the number of deadlifts or pull-ups is not arm or leg strength, but grip. With chalk this becomes less of a problem.

When should you use chalk in the gym?

Chalk is useful, but that doesn’t mean you need it every time you climb. I typically only use the chalk bucket during my heaviest exercises, and for many workouts I don’t use it at all. Here are some signs that it might be time to use chalk:

• On a hot, sweaty day
• When you are nervous and your hands are sweaty (I write down much more in competitions than in training!)
• Heavy deadlifts, cleans and snatches
• High rep pull-ups
• For any lift where your arms feel like they’re slipping.
• Any part of the body that shouldn’t be slippery, such as the back and shoulders when performing back squats.

There is no hard and fast rule for when you “should” or “shouldn’t” use chalk—it’s a judgement. You don’t cheat by using chalk, and you don’t have to reach a certain level of power to earn this privilege. If you’re not sure, write it down and see if it makes a difference in how secure your grip is.

When chalk doesn’t help

Picking up chalk won’t help in every situation. Here are a few cases where chalk is unlikely to solve your problems:

• On very dry and cold days when your hands don’t sweat at all. (Without absorbing sweat, chalk will do little.)
• For pushing exercises such as bench press. (The grip matters for pulling exercises, not pushing.)
• When you want less friction, not more. (That thing people put on their legs when they deadlift? It’s baby powder to make the bar slide. Chalk would do the opposite.)
• When you don’t have enough grip, even with chalk. ( You need belts .)
• When you already use chalk, and you constantly get calluses and tear them. (Chalk increases friction, which can make the situation worse.)

This last point may be difficult to understand. If you do a lot of kettlebell swings or do exercises like toe-to-bar jumps, your hands are likely rubbing against the bar or kettlebell frequently. Chalk can make your grip more secure and you’ll experience less chafing. But if you use chalk and still rub a lot, you risk irritating your skin even more than without chalk.

Taking good care of your calluses will help a lot (file or shave them down without letting them crust and tear), but ultimately you’ll have to decide on a case-by-case basis whether chalk will help or hurt your situation. If in doubt, try both methods and see.

Which sports chalk is best?

Sports chalk comes in two common forms: liquid and dry. (There is also a ball of chalk dust that climbers often keep in a pouch on their belt, but it is less common in gyms.)

Pros and cons of dry chalk

Dry chalk, or block chalk, comes in large blocks. Typically, gym staff will place pieces of chalk in a bowl or bucket in an accessible location on the gym floor, and you will visit the bucket before you begin your lift. You can either rub the blocks on your hands, or dip your hands in the pile of dust that accumulates below, or a combination of both.

Block chalk is cheap to buy and easy to share. Powerlifting, weightlifting, and CrossFit gyms typically have one or three shared buckets. You don’t need to bring your own; it will be provided. If you’ve ever watched a weightlifting competition, say weightlifting at the Olympics, that’s why there’s a little bowl that the athletes put their hands into before they go to help.

We’ll talk about trash can etiquette in a minute, but many gyms don’t like chalk buckets because they’re dirty. Liquid chalk is a good alternative because it tends to stay on your hands rather than on the floor and won’t leave a residue on equipment.

Pros and cons of liquid chalk

Liquid chalk is also made from magnesium carbonate, but in this case it is ground very finely and mixed with alcohol. Typically you carry it in a bottle and squeeze a spoonful into your hands a minute before rising. After you rub it on your hands, the alcohol dries, leaving behind a thin layer of chalk. Some people swear that liquid chalk provides an even better grip than dry chalk.

If your gym doesn’t have a chalk bucket, liquid chalk is a good way to carry a personal supply. It’s also less messy; I’ve heard of a few gyms that had a “no chalk” policy, but they looked the other way when the lifters brought their own liquid chalk and used it sparingly.

On the downside, I personally don’t like the feel of liquid chalk and I don’t like waiting 30 seconds for it to dry on my hands. Then again, I also don’t like the feeling of picking up a bucket of chalk and getting chalk dust under my nails. Ultimately, the type of chalk is your preference.

Basic Chalk Etiquette at the Gym

The last thing we need to discuss is how to use chalk without being a jerk. You will only need chalk on your hands – not on the floor or hanging in the air. Keep your hands inside (or at least above) the chalk bowl or bucket as you apply the chalk, and when you’re done, rub your hands together so that any loose grains can fall back into the bucket. This way you won’t end up with chalk all over the gym; he really only needs to touch your hands (or whatever body part you’re drawing) and the barbell or kettlebell you’re holding.

And speaking of this bar, you’ll want to wipe the chalk off it later. If the gym has a chalk bucket, there should also be a small brush (often similar to a large wire-bristled toothbrush). After finishing your workout, clean the chalk from the chalk with a brush.