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Soaking Hands In Brine To Toughen Skin?


Jones1874

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Because of the cold weather, my finger tips are all cut to ribbons - I have huge gashes by the nails on my thumbs and it has stopped me from practicing my fingertip handstands... I am not a happy bunny when I can't train something. Last night I was reading a book (good ol' Terry Pratchett) and I felt a really sharp pain in my thumb - and I literally watched the cut increase in size and then blood poured out of it. It was like something from a horror movie, freaked the hell out of me. Tried vaseline, arnica and savlon so far but it just keeps getting worse.

Maybe this Tuff Foot is better?

Nothing good ever comes of reading.

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If you get splits just rub some chalk in them and get back to work.

Clay Edgin just told me a story about that the other day. Said one time he tried to bend an entire box of 60d nails in 5 hours for a church fundraiser. After 300+ nails and 3.5 hours the rub chalk into the open wounds stopped working. Something about his entire palm missing skin and having to go to the ER was the result.

For us mortals, just rub some chalk in it. Tuff foot helps with splits and cracks. I have such boney hands that I still get deep splits on the middle knuckle on a DO bend. They go deep due to thicker skin but they don't bleed anymore.

Nice! Yeah I can see how that would stop working. I went through KTA a few times and always had trouble with splitting until I figured out a few tricks. Here are a few tidbits of wisdom as a result: rubbing chalk in a split will help even more so if you add some superglue after doing so. Superglue by itself will not hold a skin split together for long when doing gripper negs, but adding a bit of chalk to it made it last longer. No idea why. Electrical tape on the handles or on your fingers where they are split is your friend. Even better for me was the narrow First Aid tape. Little bit of that covering a split will take the abuse of the knurling and high tension gripper while you heal. Rubbing some chalk into the knurling on the finger side handle so it doesn't have quite so much bite is also your friend when your skin is beat up.

As far as Bending goes, all of these apply too. I never had too much trouble with skin on my hands and fingers until I got to around the KOAB level. First time I tried a Big KOAB I split the skin on middle finger knuckles open in a big way on both hands from the shearing stress on the skin. The tears were at least a half inch long and on the sides of my knuckles. Was a new batch of the KOAB's which ended up being about 780# at 7" when we were used to the 665# at 7" stuff. Needless to say it didn't move alot on that bend. I sure bled alot as well on that one. Have to see if I still have the vid, I know I never uploaded it. From then on I often had trouble tearing in that area but as long as I wrapped that knuckle on the big bends with a bit of electrical tape I was good to go. Wasn't even the area I bent the bar over. The skin just bunched up funny there I guess.

So Daniel, it sounds like you get that same Middle finger middle knuckle tear I used to get. Wrap it with some electrical tape next time and let me know how it goes.

- Aaron

I've tried electrical tape. It helps a little but on a max effort it still does that same split, just like the ones you got on the BKOAB. That long sometimes too. It's to the point now it tears open but I don't even feel it or nor does it bleed. It's just max effort too. When my max was 390 it did it. Now my max is 510 and it does it. What has helped even more has been to rub on block chalk heavily on the areas. The extra loose chalk there seems to be helping me alot on it. I have really wide and boney knuckles and I kink heavily on the middle fingers. Just the price I pay of a tough bend.

Those things you used on grippers too are saviors. No shame in taking the heat out of a gripper to get in quality training.

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