yeah those calluses are there, but i know the ladies hate it. rough hands don’t feel good on the soft skin. i try to put some lotion to combat the overall dryness. laters pk
greg if I was still enetring PL meets you would have somewhat of a point. but I do not any longer so I don’t care if it “helps” me hold on. gee, the next time I am hanging from a cliff 2000 ft off the ground I may wish I had not used straps but I don’t think its gonna happen any time soon, I do deads for my legs and back not for my grip. peace
Ok Hetyey, I see what your saying. We just have a different view of things. I see the body as 1 unit, not a collection of body parts.
That’s why I’ve always trained lifts, and not parts. I train the press, not shoulders. DL, not back. I’m all about strength, not size (although I’m big as a result of strength training). You’ll rarely find lifts that only train 1 bodypart anyways, and if you do, those lifts are fairly useless. Later
Greg
Ok, for all you PLers, how about those calluses on the shins?
I don’t use them and don’t much care who does. Hell, I might START using them after reading this thread.
Mostly I just want to point out the irony of the fellow who thinks gloves are for pussies, but uses LOTION. I didn’t think men were supposed to use lotion for anything but masturbation.
But maybe he keeps it around for his boyfriend, so who am I to judge? 
In good humor,
Greg
I say someone said something about the people who wear their belts for every exercise, I take that to mean that some of you anti-glove/stap people use belts. I thought you were only as strong as your weakest link? lets get this right, I use straps to do deads but NEVER a belt so I’m a pussy but some of you guys use belts (the biggest cruch there is)but no gloves so you guys are “real”. if I had to choose which aids more I think a belt HELPS you lift a hell of alot more than staps or gloves ever will. peace
Let’s clear something up. Greg, that was a good one (about me not wearing gloves, but using lotion). Hey, there’s nothing wrong with lotion. It doesn’t affect weight training like gloves can. And if you’re gonna have calluses, you should take care of them. Otherwise they can cause problems.
As for wearing a belt, I personally think a belt should only be used when doing heavy weights (1-3RM) on certain exercises (squats, maybe deads, cleans). My point about the belt thing is that so many trainees are out there wearing their belt on every exercise no matter how light or heavy they go. That is a reason so many people have lower back problems. So if you’re gonna use a belt, save it for some very heavy lifting. Otherwise, leave it at home. Paul Chek, Pavel Tsatsouline and others have talked about glove and belt use, and for the most part, you’re much better off without.
As ridiculous as this thread is I feel compelled to cut and paste a quote from Michelle’s post “(And just for the ‘woman’ perspective, having calluses scratch across my skin is not a turn on…)”
I think I’ll worry about compliments from women as I feel 'em up, not about what “real men” and their calluses think of my pretty gloves.
Stop being such HOMO’s you guys wearing gloves! You ever notice how the guys wearing gloves are always loners? They never have a partner or a friend, and they don’t really talk to anyone, and they use light weights and they read the fuckin newspaper and drink coffee. (In Norm McDonald Voice) - That’s eh…GAY!
You know what? I try not to rub my calluses on the women I’m with, and the lotion helps keep them softer. But I’m not going to wear gloves because some girl doesn’t like them. And this is going to sound crazy, but the last girl I was with actually liked when I rubbed her and she felt the calluses scrap along her body!
Nate - I’m glad you realize that was all in fun :). Do you mind explaining how gloves affect weight training negatively? You’re still gripping/moving the weight.
I have a unique situation - because of moderately sever joint problems (especially in my hands) I cannot grip very well at all. I cannot hold the bar during a deadlift because of it, so I have to use straps. I chuck them at every opportunity when I don't need them, but I will NEVER be able to do deads without them. Sucks, but there you go. I prefer to train the muscle with straps rather than not at all.
The real b!tch of it is my grip strength will never improve enough to make a difference, though it is improving.
I don’t use gloves, but I can’t really see the negatives to them. I just don’t need them - they eliminate what little grip I DO have and my hands don’t callous easily…
Greg, it’s all in good humor! I understand your problem, I too have a very weak grip. That’s one reason I don’t wear gloves. But my grip does limit me in certain exercises, especially deadlifts. I do use straps when doing heavy deadlifts, clean pulls or snatch pulls and occassionally with pull-ups. I’d rather use straps over gloves. As for the negatives to using gloves, this is what Pavel has said about gloves in another post on the forum:
"Pavel points out that when a heavy load causes pressure against the body, a reflex causes your nervous sytem to recruit otherwise high-threshold fibers in a sort of emergency response. There are Mechanoreceptors in your joints that sense heavy loads bearing down on them that can trigger this reflex. That's why you can't just sit there and flex your biceps as hard as you can, never curl a weight, then go win some heavy curl contest."
“In the case of gloves, there are actually bundles of nerves in the fleshy part of the palms that sense pressure. Once the pressure gets high, in kicks the reflex. Now, I’m no exercise physiologist (but I do play one on TV), so forgive me if I’ve stated something incorrectly or used bad terminology. So back to the point at hand (pun). By wearing gloves the weight stays the same, but the pressure against these special sensors are recuced. Therefore, the excitability of the higher threshold fibers is reduced.”
So there you go! Now you know the reason. And for more info, read Pavel's book! - Nate Dogg
Vedder, Stop working out in a gay gym! Didn’t all the guys kissing and that old man that keeps slipping his dick up your ass in the shower tip you off?
Nate Dogg, I assume you don’t wear shoes in the gym for the same reason. Eh?
Actually, I don’t wear shoes when doing squats, deadlifts and overhead presses. Cheers! 
OK guys, I’ve got calluses on my schlong. Will I turn into a nancy if I use lotion on it? I don’t want to have to start sucking dick. What if I get a training glove for my member…? LMAO
Fuck this thread is funny…! Let’s not get worked up fellas.
I really wanted to chime in here, because I just don’t understand all this about it being a battle scar of lifting to have disgusting hands. To me it’s like some dumb kid lifting, tearing his rotator cuff and continuing to lift so he can say he is tough, and real lifters take a ripped muscle as a battle scar. (Going to extremes of course, but trying to emphasize a point) It seems us lifters take those lovely stretch marks on our chests and delts as battle scars, sure they’re ugly but we accept them as necessary scars and can be proud of them. But can anyone honestly say they’d want the stretch marks if they didn’t need to get them? I doubt it, so why calluses when we can control them? Personally I’ve always debated on where and who draws the line between toughness and stupidity. I’ve lifted 6 years, almost every workout with gloves, and I receive a lot of compliments from women on how I have beautiful and manly hands because they have a nice shape, are really strong (made a few gals cry by accidentally shaking too hard without noticing), and “Really soft, not like those gross rough hands insert group of girls ewwwwwing and yuck yucking here”. Not to mention this is all the while why they can’t get their hands of my hands. About the argument about wearing them and functional strength, Dr. Thomas McLaughlin was the one who said pressure from the bar against the fleshy part of the palm on the little finger causes extensor or stabilization response in the upper arm, reflexively aiding the stability of the upper arm and stimulating greater contraction of the triceps. Therefore, the gloves may hinder this effect somewhat. Personally I work as a labourer constantly doing heavy lifting in the summers between University, and I have the most functional strength of anyone I know. Perhaps my gloves do interfere to a very small degree, I’m not sure and I don’t care, I guess it’s what’s more important to the individual. Cheers.
It’s strange that amidst all the mud slining, no one has mentioned that the best way to prevent calluses, gloves or not, is to have a strong crushing grip…i used to wear gloves for every exercise, even squats…until 2 years ago when i went to the gym without them and found that i couldnt maintain a proper grip on the pull up bar…but since i started doing plenty of grip work, especially with the Captains of crush grippers…i’ve found that i now have hardly any calluses to speak of.
SBL, you made some good points. You’re right, none of us want calluses as proof that we work hard (nor do we want stretch marks!). It would be great if you didn’t get calluses even if you didn’t wear gloves. But that doesn’t happen. Well, according to Tan, he has avoided getting calluses from heavy grip work. So that’s something to think about doing.
And like SBL said, it’s really up to the individual to decide if they want to wear gloves or not. I really don’t care if someone wants to wear them. I said that “gloves are for pussies” in an earlier post in order to instigate a few people. So don’t take it personally. As for those of us who have calluses, I think many of us know how to take care of them (shaving, filing, lotion, etc). So even though I have some calluses, my hands are still soft and smooth except for the few times when they build up and start to peel. Once I get rid of them, they look fine!
After years of rowing & getting blisters on top of blisters, I’ve got some real nice calluses. & all you girlymen who use straps are using too much weight, just like Chad Coy says. If you can’t hold onto it, it’s too heavy, simple as that.