I ripped a callus doing high pulls. What should I do? I don’t want to miss any high pulls moving forward…would a band aid do the trick? I feel like it will just come off…
Run the callus under warm water so it becomes pliable. Snip the dead skin/callus with a nail clipper or a similar tool. Wrap your hand if needed. Go to the gym and train just as you would hadn’t the callus ripped.
Hi James,
First off, I don’t think there is a single oly lifter/any lifter who hasn’t ripped a callus of at some point, so don’t worry.
To help there are a couple of things I would do:
- With some clean nail clippers, clip of any loose skin (don’t go crazy though)
- When not lifting, apply on those gel foot blister pads, this will keep it from drying out and cracking aswell as keeping it clean whilst going about daily life. This can be removed at night to allow fresh air to the to the wound.
- I suggest heavily taping the area before any high pull work out. There are many video guides on youtube on how to do this but I recommend one by Donny shankle.
Once it is healed you should start to use some preventative measures to stop this from happening again.
when lifting use both chalk and straps, this will keep the hands dry and grip strong preventing any slip of the bar which is the cause of ripped calluses.
After training:
- After showers, rub down all your calluses wth a stone or emery paper.
- Find a good quality hand balm or moisturiser and apply this after rubbing down calluses and immediately after training upon washing hands (especially is your using chalk as this can dry your hands out considerably)
Hope these help and you can get back pulling explosively soon
@James: You can also wrap the strap so your grip is over the strap to protect your hand more until it heals. The post above this is outstanding though …I do all of that on a regular basis …vasoline works well at night so does coconut oil, baby oil, or baby oil gel to properly get moisture on your hands so you can dry out & crack…those can get irritating too.
[quote]strongmanvinny wrote:
Run the callus under warm water so it becomes pliable. Snip the dead skin/callus with a nail clipper or a similar tool. Wrap your hand if needed. Go to the gym and train just as you would hadn’t the callus ripped. [/quote]
ripped mine last week, didnt cut it off, had my worst high pulls session ever, then finally I cut it off, then after 1 day, I have just finished one of.my best sessiom of sghp!!
Hull2012’s post is awesome.
btw I recommend people use as natural a moisturiser as possible. Long-term use of things like vasoline, and mineral-based products (esp those with alcohol in them), will dry your skin out. A good rule is to use only products you’d be ok to eat… organic virgin coconut oil is my choice. Organic Extra-Virgin Olive Oil and Almond Oil are other good choices. You just have to be careful with clothing & bedding (cotton gloves are good, if a little un-manly lol). But the coconut oil doesn’t discolour or stain (in my experience). Plus, it is also a great “love moisturiser” 
@ All:
So to knick off calluses with clippers or not…is the question?
I personally would never use clippers to remove calluses unless it was to clip away small pieces that are dry and have come apart from the callus or to tidy up the area where a callus has been ripped off. My reason for this is it is too easy to go too deep or take too much off with clippers. With a stone or emery paper it is a very gradual removal of hardened/dry skin and therefore much easier to control how much you take off and stop before it gets raw (which is not the goal).
@Health: Thank you for your input…I haven’t really tried the coconut oil, but I will try it out. I always enjoy learning a better way. Thank you!
Lanolin is also a good thing to put on calluses. An Olympic lifter friend of mine used to put crazy glue on his ripped off calluses.
@Hull:
Thanks, yeah I did that a couple weeks ago and now have to rebuild new Cals and Blisters…not fun. Tape!..I need Tape! for a while anyway.
Also the reason I’ve noticed my hands are getting ripped up is the fact I sweat like a beastmaster…and use cotton thick straps. This sucks and will rip the hands apart. Now implementing Climbers Chalk and eventually leather thin straps. This should solve the problem.
@Brandon: Get some leather Schiek straps…your grip will slip less & you’ll get fewer calluses.
@Sput:
Fully dude.
[quote]germanicus wrote:
Lanolin is also a good thing to put on calluses. An Olympic lifter friend of mine used to put crazy glue on his ripped off calluses.[/quote]
Lanolin is what women use on their breasts when breast-feeding… so that’s prob a decent alternative for calluses
@All:
Figured out what was ripping my fingers to shreds on HighPull days…my thick cotton straps. They were rolled under my last two fingers and pulling when wet. DDDDDDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMM. Flipped them around and now more under first two fingers…problem solved.
duct tape and super glue…that sh@# fixes everything