How To Prevent Hand Tears On Murph
TOM ROWLAND PODCAST
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Podcast Synopsis
A callous is created as a beautiful response from your body to adapt to a stimulus. You are doing something that is wearing off skin in a certain area like pullups, poling the boat, rowing the boat, lifting weights and your body develops a callus right at that spot. It also develops a callous only as thick as the work you are doing with it. So if you only do a little poling or lifting or a few pullups, you will have thin, small callouses. If you do a medium amount you have medium callouses. This is where the problem comes in. When callous tears it is usually because you are asking more from your body than normal.
Ripping a callous is really about friction. Friction pulls on the skin and you can usually take it. If you go a little more than normal, your body produces a little more callous without tearing but when you ask a lot more than normal it can tear if other factors are present as well.
Excess friction can be caused by more reps but you can also be aware of other ways that friction can become a problem:
Chalk offers a better grip and more friction.
Taped bars = more friction so be careful with taped bars. Especially if they are freshly taped. They provide a much better grip so instead of sliding across the bar, the skin is being pulled resulting in a tear sometimes.
Hot Bars = a great place to blister under the callous and then tear. I’ve seen people lose their entire palm on a hot bar in the summer doing toes to bar.
Death grip on the pullups bar = friction. Loosen your grip a bit. Relax
The best protection is gymnastic grips. I like the Rich Froning Bear complex ones. These are the exact ones I use: https://www.roguefitness.com/bear-komplex-3-hole-hand-grips-froning-r-edition-carbon-fiber
Callous razor or pumice stones.
Smooth out the callous. But at this point, the day before an event I don’t suggest it unless there are some edges on the callous that look like they could tear. If you have never shaved your callouses, the night before a big event is not the time to start in my opinion. Work this out in training. However, the callous razor and pumice stone are things you should consider working into your regular routine.
If you tear - Ouch. This really hurts.
Got to clean it. Wash hands with soap and water. It will hurt.
Alcohol at this point will send you over the moon with pain. Some people just go for it with alcohol…just know, it is going to hurt.
DO NOT use New Skin at this point. Maybe later but not right then. I don’t know what is in that stuff…but it hurts worse than anything Ive ever used.
Betadine solution doesn’t hurt nearly as bad
If there is skin hanging on keep it. Fold it back over. Pat it down. Use some Neosporin and cover it. A few days later you can trim it off as you develop some new skin on the injury site.
I hope you don’t tear! Good luck!
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