Hand Rips: Maintaining Your Hands for CrossFit

Salus • Jul 07, 2022

How to Prevent CrossFit Hand Rips

You know you’re a CrossFitter when handshakes become a topic of conversation. Not only because of your strong grip, but because of those nasty little calluses and hand rips. It’s important (and easy) to make hand care a part of your training.

Our hands have seen it all, we’ll show you the trick to keeping them rip-free!

Between hanging on the bar for toes to bar and endless pullups, holding on to the barbell with a hook grip for the snatch or clean and jerk, kettlebell swings, heavy deads, dumbbell snatch….almost every move in CrossFit can take a toll of your hands.

All that extra dead skin build up not only makes for a rough handshake, but it also increases your risk for a hand tear! And while some might feel proud to show off their hand rips as a badge of CrossFit, they’re really painful and they limit you training for a long time (how many exercises can you think of that don’t involve holding on to something…not many)

Daily and Weekly Hand Maintenance to Prevent Rips

Try these simple hand care tips to prevent hand rips and keep your grip ready for anything:

Daily

Moisturize.

Especially in the winter, make sure you keep your hands moisturized. I know, it’s not fun to touch your keyboard or smart phone with lotioned-up hands, so at the very least, make sure you put on plenty of lotion nightly.

Opt for all natural lotion without harmful chemicals. Burt’s Bees and Badger Balm are both good lines to try.

Weekly

The night before your rest day, make a habit to shave your calluses.

Tweezerman makes a good callus shaver, just be sure you use a sharp blade each time (a dull blade could end up ripping off close-by, sensitive alive skin).

Then, buff them down with a pumice stone or an fancy electronic one like this one , and moisturize thoroughly.

When should you do this? Rest day is best, that way you have all night and the next day for any sensitive skin to smooth out. Make sure you don’t do the the day of your WOD or your hands will hurt.

Keep Your Hands Healthy!

These hand care steps may not always give you soft “pre-crossfit” hands, but it will definitely prepare them to handle whatever workload you throw their way and prevent those notorious hand rips, too!

Have more CrossFit questions?

Let’s chat! Check out our  blog for more frequently asked questions. And of course, don’t hesitate to chat with us before or after class or shoot us a message at info@salusnj.com.

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