Hand Maintenance

Hand Maintenance
Written by Nichole DeHart

So you’ve been doing CrossFit for a while and you are loving it. You’ve mastered your barbell cycling, pull-ups, toes to bar, etc (or at least learned how to do them) and you are feeling like a champ. However, your hands may beg to differ and you will start to notice some callus development. While I am very proud of my clients when they start developing tougher hands, I also understand that it can be a nuisance if they are not properly taken care of.

Yes, you want to have tough hands so that they are not constantly ripping, but you can go to the other extreme of having huge calluses that pinch and rip whenever you hang from the bar or do work with the barbell. This is where we have to get creative with hand maintenance. Myself and a few other girls have conducted a very scientific experiment on finding the best hand maintenance for calluses. I present to you three easy steps for maintaining hand health that will leave you with the delicacy of a baby’s bottom while still having the toughness of Klokov’s hands.

Step 1
Moisturize daily. The worst thing for your hands is for them to be perpetually dry; your calluses will thrive in this environment! Now, if you want some bedazzle in your life, purchase Burt’s Bees Radiance Body Lotion. This is a fantastic lotion that not only has mica in it to provide some shimmer, but it also boasts to be 99% all natural. This is something that I particularly look for since you want to avoid slathering a bunch of chemicals on your body. Check out their lotion below:

http://www.burtsbees.com/natural-products/body-moisturizers/radiance-body-lotion.html

If you want to opt out of the shimmer type of lotion (I don’t know why anyone would want that), then try any of Kiss My Face lotions, which are also all natural.

http://www.kissmyface.com/body/grid/natural-moisurizers

Step 2
Shave your calluses once a week. If the callus builds up to be too big, then it can easily pinch when on the pull-up bar or when doing barbell work. You don’t want to over shave, which is why I like to do it once a week right before a rest day (that seems to be the magic number). The best shaver I have found are the ones made from Germany. Purchase extra razors (you never want to shave with a dull razor) and shave your calluses down once a week. Don’t be shy with the shaver – really press down hard when shaving and try to get your hand as smooth as possible. If you don’t already have a callus shaver then you can pick one up here:

http://www.wodshop.com/wodshop-callus-remover/

Step 3
Pedi Egg time. You will notice that after shaving your calluses down, there might be some ridges still left. This is where the pedi egg comes into play. Try filing your hands down with the pedi egg after getting the bulk of the callus off by using the callus shaver. This will help smooth out your hands so that there are no bumps or ridges left. Check out the pedi egg below (whoever invented this was a genius):

http://www.amazon.com/Pedicure-Foot-File-Colors-vary/dp/B00113FENI

Bam! Three easy steps to beautiful hands that can handle whatever work load you send their way.

If you have other techniques for callus maintenance then please mention them in the comments below!