By Mike Hall

Whether you’re a gymnast, weightlifter, or cross fit fanatics, dealing with a hand rip is an unavoidable experience. They say you’re not a true gymnast until you have your first hand rip, but that doesn’t really help make your hand better and get you back in action. We’ve compiled some tips for avoiding hand rips as well as treating them once they happen.

Preventing a Hand Rip

So why do athletes get hand rips in the first place? It boils down to too much friction on your hands that are either a bit too soft or a bit too callused. If your hands are still a bit fresh to your new physical activities, try to slowly build up the calluses on your hand by not overdoing certain exercises that might be tough on your hands. You’ll want to build up your hands to be tough and smooth as opposed to dry, rough and bumpy.

Moisturize

Right from the start, you’ll want to constantly moisturize your hands to avoid them getting dry and cracked. While normal skin moisturizers work well, hand salves are much more designed for keeping your hands moisturized and germ free. Burt’s Bees is a great example. Before applying moisturizer, make sure your hands are clean and a bit warm by running them under water for a minute or two.

Control your Calluses

As you begin to build up calluses, it’s important to keep them under control and as smooth as possible. You can buy a pumice stone at a drug store or supermarket to do that. You can also do that with a razor, but it’s important to be careful not to cut yourself! Remember that you’re not trying to remove your calluses, you are are just smoothing them out a bit.

Treating a Hand Rip

All this advice on preventing hand rips is all well and good, but sometimes all you want to know is how to heal your current hand rip to get back out in the game as quickly as possible.

Wash it Off

Right after injuring your hand, go into the bathroom and wash it with soap and water. It may sting a little bit, but it’s important to wash off any chalk, sweat and dirt that could lead to an infection and slow down the recovery process.

Excess Skin

Trim off any excess dead skin with sterilized scissors, and immediately apply a disinfectant like Bactine or Neosporin. Cover the rip with a bandage, and then wrap it with athletic tape if you will be doing more activities.

Keep it Moisturized

To avoid the rip cracking or drying out, which will slow down the recovery process, frequently apply a petroleum based jelly like Vaseline on the rip. If you’re on the go, a lip balm like chapstick works just as well. To really keep your hands moisturized, apply the petroleum based jelly and then keep your hand in an air sealed plastic bag or wear a rubber glove. This is easy to do right before going to bed.

Tea Bags

Believe it or not, tea bags can help with the recovery process and will help reduce pain! Make a cup of tea, and then take out the tea bag and allow it to cool for a few minutes. Apply the tea bag right on the rip, and let it sit there for at least 15 minutes. The tannic acid in the tea is what helps relieve the pain, and it will help encourage growth of new skin.

Vitamin E

Many swear by Vitamin E as the best way to quickly heal rips, which makes sense as a healthy diet of Vitamin E is necessary for good skin health. You can buy a container of Vitamin E pills and carefully use scissors to cut one end of the capsules off.

To avoid further injury, be sure to cover the rip with a proper bandage and athletic tape. If it feels uncomfortable during practice, take off the bandage and reapply a new bandage and tape.

There’s always a silver lining to getting a rip if you’re a gymnast, as you learn how to swing bars while having one, which is helpful for when you get a rip right before a big competition event. Best of luck with dealing with your rip, and let us know if there are any additional methods you think we should include in care or prevention!