Hand Care for Weightlifting

I just want to touch on the topic of hand care. I uploaded a video a while back but to be honest, at the time, the information may have been a little over everyone’s heads and talked about problems that most of us had yet to encounter. Well, congratulations – progress has been well and truly made and along with that progress, we have welcomed some gnarly calluses into our lives.

I’m not going to re-invent the wheel and write a long piece on hand care, instead I will bring to your attention these good links (and also the old Donnie Shankle video, which may be a little long for some but I could listen to his voice all day – in a completely heterosexual way of course).

Here is the first link complete with a good video on how to grip the bar.

A really short (4 point) article for those in a rush or with short attention spans.

And this one (part 1 of 4), you have a bit more time.

At the very least, get a pumice stone at the chemist and some hand lotion / moisturiser. Maybe go the whole hog and get some zing oxide tape (the great outdoors or physio needs, so that you can protect your hands if they do rip).

You have to weigh up the risk / reward ratio to a lot of training and always make sure there is a definite WHY and REASON to do something in your training. I am guilty in the past of doing silly shit because it made me ‘hardcore’ and there was no other reason to do it other than to stroke my ego. A classic example involved a workout with weighted, strict and kipping pullups. I can’t remember how many reps it was for but it was a good 100 after my hands started to bleed all over the place. A very definite example of risk outweighing reward…