How to Rip, and How to Help Prevent Them

So I had two choices I was looking at for the blog post today. One was Rich getting his pull over WOHOO!! Way to go Rich, that is awesome. But instead I’m posting a photo of a pair of hands missing some skin.

Unfortunately this photo does not do justice to the state of Kristy’s hands after the workout this morning. First hats off to her for doing legit pull ups meaning she did on the order of 75 pull ups solid. This massive tearing all occurred at once. It was not one rip at a time through the 75, but in one fell swoop right at the end. There was a cause, she got a bit lazy with her grip right at the end. It’s totally understandable that one’s grip would start to fail at the end of 75 pull ups, but how you allow that to occur will have a drastic impact on the state of your hands afterword.

When you feel like your grip is failing you need to take care to not let your grip half shift at the bottom of a pull up. Nearing the end of a long set of pull ups (or bar routine for our gymnasts) the layers of skin in your hand are worn and a sheering force can separate them. If you have a grip on the bar and then shift under load the outer layer of skin will potentially adhere to the bar better than to the other layers of skin, this results in a rip, and in some cases, big, nasty, bloody rips. Start to develop a feel for how to grip the bar. As much as possible hook your fingers over the bar and do not fully grip the bar in your palm. In gymnastics we have to be critically aware of not gripping the bar to tight. We often joke about “trying to squeeze water out of the bar”. Gripping the bar tightly is a sure way to brutalize your hands. Create a solid hook with your hands and be conscious of how it feels. In time you will learn what a near rip feels like and be able to adjust for it. While we wear rips like a badge of honor around here, it is better to not rip whenever possible. It is an inevitable part of how we train, but they can be reduced. When you rip badly it will impact your training for a few days, so pay attention to your hands and work on holding the bar properly to help prevent rips.