I remember one interesting incident at the beginning of my sports career when a coach told us about injuries in weightlifting competitions. We watched the video of various unpleasant moments from international competitions and the coach explained what happened and why. And then a huge and very formidable heavyweight enters the platform, gets into the starting position, and I think to myself: “now, probably, the barbell will do something terrible to him, since it’s so heavy, and there are 4 discs on the barbell on each side”. The athlete tears the barbell off the platform, reaches just above the knees, a terrible grimace appears on his face and he just throws the barbell. I did not understand at all what happened and where the injury was, but then I saw that the athlete was looking at his palm, from which the skin was almost half peeled off. The coach explained to us that the athlete simply picked off calls. Naturally, there was nothing life-threatening in this, but that athlete did not succeed in performing well, because even with a bandaged hand, it was too uncomfortable to hold on to the sharp side of the barbell.
The palms are that part of the body that athletes do not know how to and chronically forget to follow. At the same time, almost every weightlifter remembers how important the grip itself and its strength are. And since a lot of exercises are performed in weightlifting straps or because calls do not break off every day, many simply do not attach much importance to this issue. Until it becomes a problem for the implementation of sports results in competitions.
Let’s take a closer look at the skin on the palms. Beginners and those who return to training after a long break (3 or more months) noticed how the skin on their palms coarsens and dries. And also how painful the skin on the hands can be after heavy workouts. To some extent, this is even similar to muscle soreness in the body.
As the number of your barbell workouts increases, the calluses on the palms become hard. On the one hand, this is good, the skin will no longer be irritated by the knurling. But calls must be constantly looked after, otherwise, they will begin to burst at the most unexpected moment, for example, in a final attempt at a competition. And it will hurt, bloody, and make it VERY difficult to train or compete.
If this does happen, then the brush must be bandaged so that the bare skin does not touch the knurling. Believe me, this is quite painful, especially the first time. Unfortunately, many athletes do not even know what to do, and often the coach who will help is not near them. Also be prepared that the grip will feel different with the wrist bandaged, but at least you can continue to train or compete.
I strongly advise everyone to have fingernail scissors, nail clippers and a fingernail polish and a mini first aid kit in a training bag. This will allow you to take care of calluses if you notice they are suspiciously large before exercising.
Another factor that affects the condition of the skin is chalk. Weightlifters can’t exercise without it, but it does dry out the skin very aggressively. Therefore, I recommend minimizing the use of chalk with warm-up weights and applying it in reasonable amounts when lifting the working weights. The athlete should not look like a white cloud of chalk)) After training, it is important to wash your hands well with soap and moisturize your palms with lotion.
I also recommend once every 2-3 weeks to arrange a SPA day for your palms: lower them for 20-30 minutes in warm water, or even in an infusion of herbs or simple chamomile and then clean off the calluses with a special file ( callus shaver) or pumice (pumice stone). After that, you also need to moisturize your palms with lotion. Also, this procedure should be done 2-3 weeks before the competition to avoid all the unpleasant stories that you read about earlier.
Take care of your palms so that they do not interfere with lifting large pounds!
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