Hey guys- here's an article on hand rips by Phil Savage from the Crossfit Journal that I thought might be helpful to a lot of you. Kim, perhaps you could comment on the use of hand guards??
"Rips of the skin and calluses on the hands are an annoying and painful part of any physical exercise that uses the hands intensively. Anyone can get them, and there's no getting around that fact. You can get them from shoveling snow, playing baseball, throwing the javelin, climbing ropes, or swinging on bars. You can get them from doing just about anything involving the hands. Gymnasts have to deal with them all the time, as do weightlifters and, of course, people who do a high volume of kipping pull- ups.
Hand guards (grips)
There are several ways to prevent or at least minimize rips or tears on your hands. As a gymnastics coach, I encourage my athletes to wear hand guards or grips when they are training on the rings and high bar so they can train longer and harder without worrying whether their hands are going to tear. Gymnasts typically wear these leather hand grips (guards) when training and competing on the rings and the horizontal bar (high bar) or uneven bars. Grips for the rings have two finger holes (photos 1 and 2) and those for high bar have three (photos 3 and 4); all types have a strip of leather that protects the working side of the hands, and some have dowels in them to extend the fingers' reach and help the gymnast lock onto the bar or rings. You can order these grips online from most any gymnastics equipment and supply company. I personally use american-gymnast.com."
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3 comments:
Great article! Time to whip the hands back into shape.
No prob, Jenn!
First off, I would not recommend the leather gymnastic grips to any crossfitter. Those specific grips are made for helping a gymnast keep their grip on a bar or the rings while moving at high speeds through the bottom of a powerful swing. They are really more for "hanging on" than for protecting the hands (even though they do offer some protection). But they definitely can be used - don't get me wrong!
However, for us crossfitters... I recommend making your own "tape grips"! That's something that us gymnasts would use under the leather grips if we ever had a nasty rip. (plus, good thing is that they're super affordable)
You know what? I'll make a video of me putting together a tape grip so that the rest of you can have a tutorial on how to do it yourself! All you need is some athletic tape. I'll get to working on it :)
That would be awesome!! It's my opinion too, that if you manage your calluses well (once you get them) by filing them down a little with an emery board, they are less likely to rip. You don't want to file them off completely ('cause then you'll be at square one), but enough so that they will be a lot less likely to rip. But I definitely can't comment, and defer to Kim the Great, on the grips (tape, leather, or otherwise).
Jenn
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