• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Breaking Muscle

Breaking Muscle

Breaking Muscle

  • Fitness
  • Workouts
    • Best Shoulder Workouts
    • Best Chest Workouts
    • Best Leg Workouts
    • Best Leg Exercises
    • Best Biceps Exercises
    • Best Kettlebell Exercises
    • Best Back Workouts
    • Best HIIT Workouts
    • Best Triceps Exercises
    • Best Arm Workouts
  • Reviews
    • Supplements
      • Best Pre-Workouts
      • Best Protein Powder
      • Best Whey Protein
      • Best Creatine
      • AG1 Review
    • Equipment
      • Best Adjustable Dumbbells
      • Best Home Gym Machines
    • Certifications
      • ISSA Review
  • News
  • Exercise Guides
    • Legs
      • Back Squat
      • Bulgarian Split Squat
      • Goblet Squat
      • Zercher Squat
      • Standing Calf Raise
      • Hack Squat
    • Chest
      • Bench Press
      • Dumbbell Bench Press
      • Close-Grip Bench Press
      • Incline Bench Press
    • Shoulders
      • Overhead Dumbbell Press
      • Lateral Raise
    • Arms
      • Chin-Up
      • Weighted Pull-Up
      • Triceps Pushdown
    • Back
      • Deadlift
      • Trap Bar Deadlift
      • Lat Pulldown
      • Inverted Row
      • Bent-Over Barbell Row
      • Single-Arm Dumbbell Row
      • Pendlay Row
Fitness

How to Not Rip Your Hands (and How to Fix Them if It’s Too Late)

Whether it is kettlebells, CrossFit, weightlifting, or any number of other activities, your hands take a serious beating.

Becca Borawski

Written by Becca Borawski Last updated on March 31, 2014

Whether it is kettlebells, rowing, CrossFit, weightlifting, or any number of other activities, your hands take a serious beating. The sensitive skin on your palms can get rough and rip open. Rips are painful, unattractive, and a hindrance to further training. But what can you do to prevent rips? And once a rip occurs, how do you treat it?

Hand Maintenance

The first step is taking care of your hands before damage occurs. Ideally, your hands would be completely smooth. If your skin is not rough and lumpy, there is nothing to catch on the bar when you are lifting or doing pull ups or on the kettlebell when you’re swinging or snatching.

Excellent tools for shaving down your calluses are a pumice stone, a PedEgg, or a corn or callus shaver. For those with less patience and a little more bravery, the Dremel is by far the most effective and efficient tool for shaving calluses. Use the sanding tool that comes with the Dremel and start at a slow speed. Work your way up to higher speeds as you gain confidence using it. You just want to grind off the dead skin. Trust me, you’ll know if you hit good skin by accident!

Of course, no matter how great the tool, it doesn’t do any good if you’re not using it. Get in the daily habit of shaving your hands. A perfect time is right after you get out of the shower when your skin is puffy and soft.

Prevention During the Workout

Now what happens now that you start the workout? There are a few tools we can use to keep the rips at bay.

Chalk: Chalk is a double-edged sword. Small amounts keep your hands dry and help your grip. This means you are less likely to hold the bar too tightly, which is a good thing as far as callus prevention. On the other hand, chronic over-chalkers may actually be creating more friction by having so much chalk on their hands. Be frugal with the chalk and use a towel to dry your hands between sets.

Grip: Think about how you actually grip the barbell, pull up bar, or kettlebell. Are you grabbing it way down in the palm of your hand? Or are you grabbing it more with your fingers? Think about how rock climbers use their fingers to grip, rather than their whole hand. Think about the fact you are hanging on something, not pushing. The bar, or the kettlebell handle, should not be all the way into the meat of your palm. That will only cause more folds of skin to bunch up and increase the likelihood of ripping. Practice hanging onto things with just your first couple knuckles.

Leather Hand Grips: If you have sensitive skin or you work in a profession where you cannot tolerate ripped palms, consider using leather hand grips. These take some getting used to, and it is possible to still rip even while wearing a grip, but they will help tremendously once you adjust to using them. You can also make something similar yourself out of athletic tape, but it won’t be as durable.

It Just Takes Time

Conditioning your palms is like building up any other part of your body. It takes time.You will go through a period where no matter how careful you are, your hands will rip at a high enough volume of exercise. Be patient and be careful. Your hands will come out tougher on the other side.

NOTE: It does not make you cool to rip your hands. Real athletes care for their bodies and that includes the skin on their palms.

hand care, calluses, ripped hands, torn hands, how to heal hands, crossfit hands

What If I Already Ripped?

But now what happens once a rip has occurred? What can you do to heal quickly and safely?

#1: Wash It Out: The first thing to do when your hand rips is clean it out well. It’s going to be painful, but you need wash it out with warm water and soap. Depending on the state of the gym you’re in, you may also want to rinse it with iodine.

#2: Trim Excess Skin: If the skin looks like it might catch and rip further, then use sterilized scissors and trim the excess skin away. If the tear is small and more like a burst blister, than leave the skin to protect the healthy flesh underneath.

#3: Bandage and Keep Moist: The key to healing quickly and minimizing pain is to keep the wound site moist. Use a product with vitamin E, or anything from Vaseline to bag balm can do the trick. But keeping the rip moist will prevent it from drying and tearing further.

#4: Bag It Overnight: One trick many gymnasts use is to wear gloves or plastic bags over the hands at night. It keeps your hands moisturized and also helps prevent you from spreading lotion all over your bedding.

How to Train With Ripped Hands

You have ripped your hand, but you want to keep training. What can you do? Three different options are quick and easy:

New Skin: Applying liquid New Skin will create a tough, synthetic layer over your rip. Be aware, New Skin sticks to healthy skin, too, and if it starts to peal off you do not want to pull on it.

Synthetic Skin Patch: There are a number of different brands out there and they work with varying success, so you’ll need to test the out on your own skin and while doing your sport or activity of choice.

Leather Hand Grips: You can always use the same leather grips you wore when you were trying to prevent your rips to begin with. Keep your rips moisturized and bandaged, and wear the grips over the bandage.

But, remember the best way to deal with rips is to prevent them. Take good care of your hands, keep your calluses to an absolute minimum, don’t grip the bar too tight, and use grips if you need to. This simple advice will help you get through your training with less pain and more enjoyment.

Photo 1 by Horst74 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo 2 courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

Becca Borawski

About Becca Borawski

Becca found her way to a career in health and fitness through Martial Arts and CrossFit. Originally a music editor for film and television, Becca started studying Martial Arts in 2000. Though she started with traditional Martial Arts it was not long before she discovered Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and her path was forever altered. She began training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) and Muay Thai and started working with professional MMA fighters, building websites, working on fight promotions, and producing videos.

As a competitor in BJJ herself, Becca wanted to get stronger and fitter. In 2006 she discovered CrossFit and became a student at CrossFit Los Angeles. In only a couple of years she became CrossFit Level III Certified, left her career in the film industry, and dedicated herself full time to coaching. She has since been certified through CrossFit in Olympic Lifting, Powerlifting, Nutrition, Endurance and Kids coaching. She also held an NSCA-CSCS from 2006-2008 and is a certified IndoRow instructor. In addition to coaching adults, she founded the CrossFit LA Kids program in 2010 and taught children aged 5-17.

Becca regularly takes on new sports, which have included indoor rowing, fencing, and most recently, cycling, as she believes it makes her both a better athlete and a better coach. In order to reach more people with her coaching, Becca also created ModernAthena.com – a website dedicated to women in pursuit of physical fitness and self-improvement.

View All Articles

Recommended Articles

handrip
Heal and Prevent Hand Rips
Hugh Jackman Deadpool 3 Workouts Spring:Winter 2023
Hugh Jackman Returns to Wolverine Condition in Workouts for “Deadpool 3”
Method Man Incline Dumbbell Presses December 2022
Check Out Rapper Method Man Cruising Through 120-Pound Incline Dumbbell Presses for 10 Reps
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson Leg Workout
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson Crushes 5 “Monster Sets” of a Leg Workout

Primary Sidebar

Latest Articles

Dorian Yates Explains the 2-Exercise Ab Routine That Fueled His Mr. Olympia Dynasty

lelja Strik (84KG) Bench Presses 132.5 Kilograms (292.1 Pounds) for Raw Masters IPF World Record

Low-Bar vs. High-Bar Squats: What’s the Best Lower-Body Builder for You?

Chris Bumstead is Building His Own Private Gym

Latest Reviews

Breaking Muscle Best Protein Powder

17 Best Protein Powders for Weight Loss, Muscle Gain, and More

Athletic Greens AG1

Athletic Greens AG1 Review: Is This Greens Powder Worth It?

Best Adjustable Dumbbells

9 Best Adjustable Dumbbells for Home Gyms of 2023

Best Creatine

11 Best Creatine Supplements For Building Muscle, Cutting, and More

woman lifting barbell

Be the smartest person in your gym

The Breaking Muscle newsletter is everything you need to know about strength in a 3 minute read.

I WANT IN!

Breaking Muscle is the fitness world’s preeminent destination for timely, high-quality information on exercise, fitness, health, and nutrition. Our audience encompasses the entire spectrum of the fitness community: consumers, aficionados, fitness professionals, and business owners. We seek to inform, educate and advocate for this community.

  • Reviews
  • Healthy Eating
  • Workouts
  • Fitness
  • News

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS Feed

© 2023 · Breaking Muscle · Terms of Use · Privacy Policy · Affiliate Disclaimer · Accessibility · About