Grip pad

A grip pad is a small, often textured or tacky accessory placed on top of a mat under the hands or feet to add traction at the specific points that slip first, usually the palms in downward dog or the feet in a wide-legged stance. Rather than replacing a whole mat, it targets the exact contact points that give out during a sweaty or intense sequence.

They are popular in hot yoga and hand-balancing practice, where even a grippy full mat can lose traction under concentrated sweat in one spot faster than the rest of the surface dries. Some are adhesive pads applied once, others are reusable and repositioned session to session depending on which pose is causing trouble.

The common mistake is reaching for a grip pad to fix a mat that is slippery everywhere, when the more likely fix in that case is cleaning the mat, switching mat towels, or moving to a more absorbent surface material. Grip pads solve a localized traction problem, not a mat that has gone slick overall.