Why is RIPT Skin Systems' 3 phase hand care kit the best cream/hand balm on the market for CrossFit hand problems? Because there are 3 stages in which every CrossFitters hands exist at any given moment.
1)Pre-rip maintenance
2) Post-rip repair
3) Post-rip recovery
You trim your nails and cut your hair don't you... Why aren't you taking care of your calluses?
PRE-RIP
Hand calluses are free gloves from nature. If you take just a little time out of your day to properly take care of them, they will protect you from rips, rather than be the cause of them.
Shape and contour calluses to prevent rips.
The number 1 biggest hand care mistake that newbs to CrossFit make is shaving, grinding, or cutting their calluses completely off, as if the callus is some kind of negative, hideous, deformity.
Wrong son!
Your calluses are trophies. You should be parading them around like you just won your high school football championship, and polishing them daily.
To polish, keep a Grindstone (synthetic pumice stone) in the shower. When your skin has been softened by the water, use the stone to sand off just the top few layers of dead skin, leaving the living layers of flexible callus still intact. Then use the fine edges of the Grindstone to contour the calluses by thinning the edges parallel to how you would grip a barbell or pull-up bar. This process will leave you with a callus that is the shape of a baseball pitchers mound. No hard edge to get caught on a bar and rip off, and a nice thick, flexible callus pad in the middle to take the abuse from whatever you are using your hands for.
Dremels, volcanic pumice stones, ped-eggs, and those cheese grater looking things they call callus shavers are great...if you want baby soft skin. You however, are an athlete, and your hands need to be useful, not just look pretty. For our purposes, these tools are too aggressive and remove too much of that hard earned callus to be useful.
Our synthetic pumice Grindstone has a texture like fine grit sand paper, and allows you full control over just how much skin you remove, especially when used in the shower (think wet sanding).
Hydrate to keep calluses flexible.
After sculpting your calluses into a grip a boa constrictor would be envious of, it's time to hydrate. This is best done immediately after polishing. Apply our Daily Dose balm (full of natural essential oils and nutrition for your skin) from it's convenient applicator in small doses directly to the callus. Rub it in, and viola! Most of your hand ripping problems are solved.
Seriously.
Most rips come from dried out calluses, with thick edges that get caught on bars. Under too much friction, they rip off. If you are diligent with the two steps above, your CrossFit hands will now be properly taken care of, and your potential for ripping is substantially reduced.
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