Snatches, pull ups, chin ups, kettlebell swings, Olympic lifts, dips on the rings or any number of other body crushing exercises have your hands looking like hamburger helper. Dead skin, calluses, or, if you are really unlucky, blisters are making you dread your next work out.
I’ve put together a little primer for you that will detail some proper hand care methods. So if your hands need some TLC… read on!
So you’ve been getting your work out on: Lifting weights, tossing a kettlbell or two around and your hands are starting to look and feel like a lumberjack’s. You don’t have any blisters yet (thankfully) but if you keep it up you will soon. You ARE however getting calluses where you didn’t think you could grow calluses and those need to disappear ASAP.
The magic to keeping your hands happy and healthy is this little guy:
The callus remover. What it boils down to is essentially a rasp for your dead hand skin. Look for the metal variety like the pic above that has both a rough side and a, err, less rough side. Don’t mess around with a weird ole pumice stone! They aren’t as good as the two sided metal versions and they get grosser, faster. No gross, no gross!
The more you continue to agitate your hands, the bigger the calluses get, which will eventually lead to them tearing off. Have the top few layers of your callus rip off is way worse than a blister from a pain and healing stand point. Keeping your calluses shaved down will not only protect your hands but will stop the bloody aforementioned mess from occurring.
Once a week you are going to take a nice long hot shower. This sounds great already right? Go through your normal cleaning rituals and before your get out you are gonna work on your hands a bit. With the rough side of your callus remover file across the top of your callus(es) for 10-30 seconds. You only want to take the top layers of skin off. The bumps should still be noticeable, not huge, but you should still be able to feel em. If you have taken them down where they are perfectly flat you’ve gone too far. Next take the smoother side and do the same thing, all you are doing with the smoother side is taking away any rough patches.
So now that your hands are nicely sanded, clean off your tool (tee-hee), and set it aside. Nobody likes dead skin… except mites. Grab your normal soaps, clean up and repeat in a week!
In closing an easy to follow bullet point list:
- go to local store, buy hand shaver (“callus remover” bah)
- once a week shave calluses at the end of a nice hot shower
- 10-30 seconds using rough side
- 10-30 seconds using the smoother side
- don’t take too much off!
- repeat next week
Ya got no excuse for nasty hands now – take care of yourself!