Anyone who has ever attempted CrossFit knows how frustrating it is to struggle in a workout not because of your strength, but because of the skin on your hands. There really is nothing more irritating than ripping your hands mid-workout. You’re faced with the choice to keep going through the pain and risk getting your DNA all over the place, switching to a scaled version of the workout even though you could easily Rx based on your strength and skill, or just throwing in the towel altogether. Here are some tips on avoiding this very annoying dilemma.
Maintenance
If you’ve been doing CrossFit long enough to develop callouses, you need to make sure you’re grooming them properly.
Bigger callouses should be shaved down to avoid ripping. You can find a tool at your local drug store that is primarily for shaving corns (eww) to shave off your large callouses. Be careful though! These come with razorblades that are obviously very sharp. You most likely won’t cut yourself with this tool, but you do want to be sure not to cut too much skin from your hand. It may take some practice in finding the right way to do this, but trust me, it’s worth it. One thing to keep in mind is that you probably should not use this tool the day of a gymnastics workout. I find that it leaves my hands a little too delicate and might actually increase the chance of ripping.
In addition to removing your large callouses, you also want to smooth out the remaining skin. My favorite way to do this is with Sandbar’s callous remover. This has the approximate diameter of a standard pull-up bar and is wrapped with a sanding surface, so when you grip it, it automatically targets the parts of your hands that would catch on the bar. It’s also decent if you’ve forgotten to shave off your larger callouses the day of a high-demanding grip workout.
Lastly, keep your hands moisturized! Especially now that we’re having to use hand sanitizer way more often, our skin gets dry. Dry and cracked skin is obviously more likely to rip. Sandbar makes a salve that you can get with your callous remover if you’re interested.
Grips
I have owned a bunch of different grips by many different brands, and have finally found one that I really like. Element 26’s Isogrips are by far my favorite. These provide excellent coverage for not only your palms, but your fingers, too. They are made with some sort of rubber that makes you almost stick to the bar, whereas other grips I’ve tried are made of cloth or a slippery leather-like substance.
To keep things honest, I don’t really think the lifespan is that great on these grips, but they’re cheap enough that it makes up for it. The issue could also be that I would sometimes use chalk on them, which some sources suggest you’re not supposed to do that (but some sources say you should…?).
Also, they’ve recently updated their design which has its pros and cons. I like that the new version provides even more coverage for you palms, and has a thick wrist strap. I’m not sure if the thicker wrist strap is meant for wrist support, but it does keep sweat from running down your arms and onto your palms (more so than the previous version anyway). What I don’t like about the new version is that they’ve taken away the retention strap at the base of the wrist (see image below) which would hold your grips in place while lifting, running, doing double-unders, or what have you. That retention strap would secure your grips in other movements, so I’m not sure why they did away with that.
Above you will see an image of my old Isogrips (right) and my new ones (left). You can see the differences I mentioned before and how much wear and tear I got from the old ones. Additionally, I bought the wrong size for my first pair (small), and have since corrected to a medium, so make sure you’re using the sizing guide! You’ll notice a year’s worth of damage on my old pair, but like I said, these grips are priced reasonably enough that I’m okay with it. I much rather the damage be done to the grips and not my hands!
One more feature I like about these grips is the stitching on the Velcro strap. The white stitching is provided so you can cut your strap to fit better and it won’t unravel.
Overall, these grips provide a very strong grasp on any type of bar, are thick enough to protect your hands, and are very reasonably priced.
With good and regular hand maintenance paired with these awesome grips, your hands will no longer hold you back from getting those PR’s!
