Fresh rips from my training session on the parallel bars.
What is a Gymnastics rip?
A blister on your callus or any part of your hand that tears away from the skin exposing fresh new skin. Heat and friction play a huge role in the fast tear away. The callus itself will stay cool because of the build up of skin, but the soft skin around it will heat up and easily give way if enough friction is applied. Typically, this occurs on a callus because the skin is hard and build up in a single spot leaving the skin around it all soft and squishy. The more build up the callus is the easier it is for it to be torn away while swinging on a bar.
How to Care For Gymnastics Rips
Step One
Drink some black tea the night you get the rips to use the activated tea leaves for your hands. Tape the black tea bag onto your rip after you have drained the water from the sachet. Leave it on there while you sleep that night and you will wake up with your new skin leathered. Black tea works the best.
Step Two
Each night after you should be soaking your hands in hot soapy water. The temperarure will be hot tub hot where you have to get used to the heat but it wont burn you [90-110 degrees ish]. Dish soap will work fine. Try extending and opening your hands to really get them opened.
Step Three
All throughout the day grab a cheap tube of chap stick and rub it in there every few hours to start the healing process. Using neosporin constantly works too. Also, if you find a specific hand balm that would be best.
Step Four
Tan your hands every few days or when they start cracking open and exposing new skin again. Tanning is the easiest because you can tape them to your hands while you sleep!
After about one week, your hands should almost be back to normal depending how deep the rip was. Man up and use a tape grip [Follow link to see how to make one] to continue training.
My hand after 1 week and doing a sloppy maintenance job to heal them quicker, but you can see the tanning from the tea leaves.
Preventing Rips in Gymnastics
Although almost unavoidable to get a rip while training bars and latches on a rough surface, there are some things to help prevent the full tear off of a blister.
Step One
Use a callus grater to flatten out the points of the calluses. The PedEgg is a great example of your best friend to help prevent the rip. Just use the shaver until the callus lays flat on your hands and finish with some nice baby oil to get some moisture and flexibility back into your hands.
Step Two
Easier solution, but may take longer would be to use any rough surface to grind the callus down. A curb while you wait for the bus works quite nice. A wet pummous stone or any coarse rock will do too.
Hope any of this helps! For further information or if you know any other solutions for care of or preventing rips leave a comment below!
