I searched the site for this, and surprisingly nothing relevant came up. Anyway, I, like everyone else on this site I imagine, get callouses on my hands from lifting, especially from deadlifts, cleans etc. My problem, however is that I tear one off almost every week or two.
I know filing them down is supposed to help, some suggested razors to scale them back down to size, but the top of my skin in generally pretty sensitive, and the issue is underneath. I get blisters underneath the callous area and deadlifts and such keep pulling on them until they rip off.
I think the problem may be with my skin in general more so than with callouses, as it happens on the bottom of my feet a lot too, especially if I play basketball or something of that nature. I’ll have big pieces of my skin separate. Of course, on my hands it’s much more of a problem, without that skin on my hands it’s a bitch to pull any weight.
Basically, does anyone else have this problem or a solution to it? It is quite a limiting factor in my weightlifting when it comes to deadlifts, rows, cleans, etc because while my body can take more, my skin is ripped apart by it.
I get blisters and callouses that rip off too. I basiaclly can’t hold the bar in my hands anymore as it hurts too much, I have to hold the bar in my fingers now.
shit, if they’re that bad get some lifting gloves and get some callous remover ointment with a stone and start filing them bad boys down. The lifting gloves will prevent further callouses so if your skin is sensitive they are recommended.
yeah definantly go with the gloves. I used to work out without gloves and although I didn’t experience anything near as bad as you guys have, the ladies don’t like callouses.
my callousses used to be so bad that i would pick at them and they’d become pointy, this led to some scratches and scabbing on certain places when it came to “alone time”.
[quote]michaelangelos wrote:
I get blisters and callouses that rip off too. I basiaclly can’t hold the bar in my hands anymore as it hurts too much, I have to hold the bar in my fingers now.[/quote]
This is what I’m talking about. The OP needs to change the way he holds the bar. It makes your grip stronger anyway. Gloves are for women.
beebuddy note Chalk will not only do nothing, it can make it worse. It makes callouses rip off easier. That’s not to say you shouldn’t use chalk, but don’t expect it to do anything for your callouses.
[quote]beebuddy wrote:
michaelangelos wrote:
I get blisters and callouses that rip off too. I basiaclly can’t hold the bar in my hands anymore as it hurts too much, I have to hold the bar in my fingers now.
This is what I’m talking about. The OP needs to change the way he holds the bar. It makes your grip stronger anyway. Gloves are for women.
beebuddy note Chalk will not only do nothing, it can make it worse. It makes callouses rip off easier. That’s not to say you shouldn’t use chalk, but don’t expect it to do anything for your callouses.[/quote]
So you’re saying not to get gloves, and continue to hold the bar in my fingers?
No, I don’t really care what you do, I was just busting balls cause someone mentioned gloves. I don’t use em and never would.
As far as holding the bar, you need to be holding it on the second pad (the one you would knock on a door with) and not the lowest knuckle (the one you would punch with) pad. It’s a bit closer down toward the fingertip. Once you change your grip you won’t have any more problems with them ripping.
Oh, and it might make your grip a bit weaker at first, but you’ll get used to it. And for exercises like one-arm dumbell power snatches there is no way to get around holding the bar in the “bad” way. The trick is to moisturize. But for something like the deadlift, you just need to change your grip.
And what the hell, if you need to wear gloves, then go for it. I just think they look funny. But who cares…
Be really careful shaving callouses. Not to say you wouldn’t be smarter than me, but I’ve really carved some bad chunks out of my hands accidently before…
I have the same problem when doing a lot of high-rep kettlebell work.
Moisturize at night.
Soak your hands and rub off excess callouses w. a pumice stone. If you let your hands soak, it should come off easily (like after you come of the pool soaked…)
Chalk - it helps me.
Relook at how you are gripping the bar - beebuddy already talked about it, but if you are holding the bar too far into your hand, it can make the folding of your skin on the bar and the callouses/blistering worse.
Rickey Dale Crain talked about this at length - I’ll see if I can find it, but I thought I posted it once here a while back.
I have the exact same problem as you, and it happens on the callouses of my ring fingers. My GF likes rough hands (says it feels more masculine), so I never considered shaving them. But when they get to that point that you know they’re going to blister underneath after heavy DLs, just go over them with a pumice stone to take them down a bit without shaving, as suggested by Boris (I tried soaking, but more comes off than I want).
That combined with some lifting/gymnastic chalk has worked the best for me. I still end up with red/pink chalk on the bar occasionally (depends on the bar), and just suck it up.
I tried holding it more in my fingers as others have suggested, but I was cursed at birth with skinny fingers. I think (hope) the glove comments were just sarcastic.
Wear gloves if you need them. Don’t let other lifters self image problems affect you. Hell, I wouldn’t wear a pink thong to flex in front of a crowd, but look at the number of heavy weights who do, lol.
It’s not like they’re a crutch like strps so grip strength should improve with or without them. I used them when I started lifting and actually found it harder to hold the bar. So do what you need to do.
I like to use a fine grain sandpaper to smooth them out and remove the “pointy” stuff. I have only had one rip once and that was because I was picking at it, which made it kind of pointy making it easier for the bar to grab a hold of it. Chalk definitely helps because it reduces the probability of your hand slipping(tearing a callous) on the bar.
At this point in my lifting endeavors, my hands are pretty rough and calloused all over. I have found that callous maturity tends to lead to less rips, but this is just my experience.
Gloves might might work for you, but I have noticed that my hands slip a little in gloves, so I don’t like them.
But who cares…