Callus Games Skin Folding Occur

If you remember from our guide on safety razor shaving, when you shave your face, youre not going for beard removal, but rather beard reduction.

Muscles get bigger, tendons get stronger, and fat tissues decrease.

They help protect your hands from the barbell and allow you to get a better grip on it.

A callus typically rips off when its ridge catches on the bar during the middle of the movement.

When a callus rips off, it leaves an open wound on your hand and it hurts like hell.

The pain is best described as a persistent stinging sensation that only gets worse when you try to grip a barbell or pull-up bar.

At its worst, a torn callus can make barbell training impossible for a few days, and even if you can work through it, its still extremely uncomfortable for a couple weeks.

When I first started training, I didnt do anything to manage my calluses so I had some big ones build up.

During this time, I did an obstacle race that required me to cross some monkey bars.

Halfway through a swing, a large callus on my right hand tore completely off.

It put a damper on my barbell training for a few days, and took about two weeks to heal.

The first step in keeping them pared down, is to prevent them from getting excessively large in the first place.

But youd be wrong.

You dont want to wear gloves when you lift weights.

While gloves would indeed prevent calluses, they get in the way of you lifting the barbell properly.

The leather in the glove adds thickness to the bar which makes gripping it during a deadlift more difficult.

Also, youre not looking for complete callus prevention; we want some toughening of our hand-hide as a natural adaptation and protection.

The best way to prevent excessive callus formation is to hold the barbell properly.

When most people grab a barbell for a deadlift, they naturally want to place the bar in the middle of their palm.

But by gripping it this way, you sow the seeds of excessive callus formation.

When you pull up on the barbell, the fold gets shoved down towards your fingers.

Callus Games Skin Folding Occur

You wont have that skin folding occur when you grip the bar there.

Gripping the bar this way wont eliminate callus build-up (which again, we want), but will go a long way in reducing excessive callus build-up.

Keeping your hands dry with chalk is just a good safety measure to take, so chalk up before every set.

If theyre looking like mountains on a topographic map, thats a sign its time to pare them down.