Sticky Situation

As a gymnast, a big problem I face every day is finding the best grip to achieve the best performance possible without any risk of slipping and injury.

This is why I created the Sticky Solution! Gymnasts have always used honey chalk and water to create a nice grip, but recently in the US gymnasts started using a new product called "tacky towel" which is a towel made of beeswax, makes it sticky but hard to handle when used with chalk.

By combining the honey and the wax it is created this sticky solution that makes it easy to work with chalk and creates a really good grip.

For starters, it is important to have a glass, not a plastics container, the wax and honey will have to mix by heating them.

Wax, the wax from a birthday candle would do, you can do it any color you want.

Honey: it has to be natural honey, no syrup.

Portions: use small portions but make sure that the honey is about double the weight in grams than the wax used. For example, I used 3 grams of candle wax and 6.5 grams of honey.

After getting the wax and honey into the glass contained put it in a microwave for 25 seconds, exceeding this time would cause the honey and wax to boil and make a mess inside the microwave.

if the solution does not look liquid enough or does not look like the picture, you could add another 10-15 seconds.

You will realize that the wax and the honey are not mixing, this is due to the fact that wax is hydrophobic meaning it repels liquid.

So to get them mixed you have to mix until they get cooler, this can take from 30 min to 1 hour, but keep mixing.

Tip: something you could do to make this process easier is put the container in a cold place like the fridge for about 10 minutes right after taking it out of the microwave.

When the solution looks like this, it will provide great grip on Parallel bars or can be used on Pommel Horse, remember to always use chalk though.