How to Minimize Callus Formation & Treat Ripped Calluses

Image credit: CrossFit
Callus formation is a byproduct of strength training & weight lifting, just like building muscle & losing fat are. The pressure of the bar against the bones of your hands promotes callus formation.

Gripping the bar remains painful as long as you don’t have calluses. That’s one reason you should never wear gloves. However big calluses tear apart more easily, so you should minimize callus formation. Here’s how.

Grip Bars Correctly. The bar will slide down in your hand during barbell rows, dead lifts & pull ups if you put it in the palm of your hands. Your skin will fold, increasing callus formation.

Put the bar close to your fingers. Not in the palm of your hand. This only applies to pulling exercises! On pushing exercises like bench press, overhead press or dips, the bar must be close to your wrists.

Chalk. Chalk fills your skin folds, making the surface of your hand palm smooth. Less skin is pressed down, thus less callus formation. Chalk also provides a better a grip by preventing sweating.

Shave Calluses. Don’t bite or rip off calluses with your nails, you’ll rip off too much and they’ll bleed. Shave calluses every 10 days. Avoid too much shaving: it weakens the surrounding skin, causing ripped callus. Tools you can use:

• Pumice stones
• Nail files
• Foot files

How to Treat Ripped Calluses. In case you didn’t followed the above tips and ripped a callus, here’s what you can do:

• Cut the ripped skin away using scissors
• Disinfect
• Wrap nose tissue around your hand when working out

It will take 2 weeks for your hand to heal. Count another 2 weeks for your skin to toughen up. During those 2 weeks you can rip off the calluses again. So make sure you grip the bar correctly and use chalk.

By Keller Williams

When you talk to women about exercise or workouts, the pervasive fear is that of becoming big or bulky. It is therefore understandable that when a woman first hears of Crossfit and what it entails, she is apprehensive. Crossfit is a fitness system found at Crossfit.com that combines gymnastic movements, running, powerlifting, Olympic lifting, and some exercises most people have never heard of. Yes, that is right, power and Olympic lifts. The Crossfit workout of the day or WOD as it is called, commonly includes powerlifts such as the deadlift and back squat and Olympic lifts such as clean and jerk. Go to any Crossfit gym though and you will quickly find out that women not only do Crossfit, they excel at it. These women have discovered one of the best-kept secrets for women’s fitness. Let us look at some of the advantages of Crossfit.

Many would assert that Crossfit is a surefire way to produce what women do not want, bulk. The truth is that Crossfit methods in a drug free individual will not produce the competition-size mass seen in most bodybuilding magazines. What it will produce for women is functional lean mass and a reduction in body fat. Crossfit WODs not only produce outstanding results for women, they are scalable, quick, and functional.

To begin, all the WODs are scalable. Every workout can be scaled or adjusted to the individual. For example, the WOD “Elizabeth” entails doing twenty one repetitions of squat cleans then twenty-one ring dips, then fifteen repetitions of each exercise, then nine repetitions of each exercise for a total of 45 reps for each exercise. The workout is done as fast as possible and the weight prescribed by Crossfit.com is 135 pounds for the squat clean. The weight is for an average male. Therefore, the weight would be too much for an average female and this is where scaling is used.

If the WOD Elizabeth were scaled for a woman of average strength and size who was relatively new to Crossfit, the result would be the same rep scheme with lower weight. The squat cleans would be performed at 65 pounds and push-ups substituted for the more challenging ring dips. To scale down even further, lower the rep scheme to twelve, nine, and six. Lessen the weight for the squat clean to 45 pounds and instead of regular push-ups, complete the push-ups from the knees. By scaling, the workout becomes manageable and appropriate for a novice or beginner.

Crossfit WODs are quick. Of course, most people desire more free time. Finding time to exercise can be especially challenging to busy women and mothers. Compare a Crossfit WOD to the typical half hour or more of cardio or aerobics and then low intensity weight training. Crossfit WODs usually run between ten and thirty minutes. Total workout time is cut in half.

Crossfit is functional. Functionality is a glaring omission from many workout routines that women engage. Ask any mother of young children though, how many times a day they lift loads from the floor or a low position in the form of kids, car seats or laundry baskets. The deadlift and related lifts are training for this type of movement. How many times does a mother squat down during a typical day? Again, the point is that performing functional movements such as squats will only increase the ability to function in day-to-day life.

Women all over the world are finding that Crossfit, the fitness system that involves intense weight training, is just what they have been looking when it comes to toning and building lean mass. It is scalable to any fitness level, quick and efficient, and functional. For many women, this shift in the paradigm of women’s fitness is long overdue.