Time and time again, athletes approach and ask me to teach them a skill—be it a pull-up, a muscle-up, a handstand push-up or a pistol. Here’s how the conversation often goes: Client: “I really want to get a muscle-up. Can you teach me after class?” Me: “How many chest-to-bar pull-ups can you do?” Client: “Maybe one on a good day.” Me: “What about ring dips?” Client: “One. In a band.” Me: “Johnny, you're not ready to work on muscle-ups. Once you can do 10 chest-to-bar pull-ups and 10 ring dips, then we can start looking at the muscle-up.” Client: "So you don't think I will be able to learn one today? Me: small chuckle. Client: Sadness overtakes his/her face.   ******...

So do I! That's why I turned to Miracle-Worker Gymnastics Coach Louise Eberts. When it comes to gymnastics, Louise has helped many athletes go from good to great. One simple cue she gave to CrossFit Games veteran Emily Abbott ("Look up on your bar muscle-ups") made all the difference in the world for Abbott, whose bar muscle-ups now appear effortless. One thing I particularly respect about Louise is her ability to create patient athletes. Whenever you see videos of her athletes getting their first muscle-up, it's always a very pretty first muscle-up. This is because she doesn't let people get ahead of themselves. Everyone she works with builds the necessary strength first, so when they do get through the rings they're...

 Have you ever been held back because of your grip in a workout with high reps of toes-to-bar, pull-ups or hang cleans? Your shoulders or legs weren’t even lactic yet, and your lungs were breathing comfortably, but your damn small hands (or at least that’s what you told yourself) just couldn’t hang onto that bar any longer. What a shame! You have worked so hard to improve your pulling strength and barbell cycling only to have your grip fail… Don’t blame your small hands. Work on your grip strength instead! Seven Ways to Improve your Grip Strength quickly 7. Deadhang Holds Some high level gymnastics coaches don’t teach their young athletes any great swinging moves on bars until they can hang from a bar...

Long-time gymnastics coach and former competitive gymnast Kira Hallwood deals with children—sometimes as young as 6 years old—suffering from bar-induced bilsters and rips on their palms and fingers.

Hallwood’s prescription when a young gymnast gets a blood blister or ‘water’ blister, meaning a rip is inevitable, is as follows:

Stuffing stockings is a stressful endeavour. It’s usually left until the last minute—after you’ve already spent too much money on other presents—and you end up buying whatever useless stocking trinkets that Walmart happens to be selling at the till.

From ugly leg warmers, to that plastic moose that poos brown jelly beans, to the wrong kind of shampoo for your hair—the list goes on. Let’s be honest now, nobody needs another post-it-note pad, and that annual stick of deodorant has become predictable and unexciting. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. Stuffing stockings with practical gifts that will be appreciated by the recipient just takes a little planning. 

Today, while our world has become more and more connected and interdependent since the 1970s, the world of sports has oddly become more and more fragmented and isolationist. Each sport does its own thing now; each sport has its own World Cup circuit and World Championships, not to mention new sports host their own world events, like the CrossFit Games and the X-Games. So while track and field and gymnastics fans might still follow their athletes at the Pan Am Games, generally speaking the rest of the world barely knows they’re going on in Toronto right now. 

When a person experiences his inaugural rip, he or she comes running to me legitimately confused what to do next. 

“Should I pop the blood blister?”

“Should I cut the skin off?”

“Should I cover up the rip, or let it dry out?”

Although the answers to these questions are like diet advice—all over the map—as someone who has been doing hand sports my whole life, here’s my best advice:

Being a Cirque du Soleil performer means Laura-Ann Chong's schedule includes 10 performances, and two or three training sessions, each week. A day rarely goes by where she doesn’t spend hours a day swinging, releasing, pirouetting around the bars. Her hands take a constant beating.

While acute rips are inevitable, Chong took the time to share her secrets to avoid too many unwanted rips, cracks, and hand pain.

  T’Was the night before Christmas And there was only one small glitch The athletes were in stinging pain Ripped hands are a bitch!   They tossed and turned, raw wounds stinging in their beds While visions of thin, smooth calluses danced in their heads And I with my polysporin that got smeared all over my cap Had reluctantly settled down for a messy winter’s nap   When near the pull-up bars there arose such a clatter It was obvious to all nothing was the matter Santa Class had RIPT kits for all hands to be tamed And he whistled and shouted and called the products by name:   Now Daily Dose, now Quick Fix, now Grind Stone too! On bees...

The dreaded ring rash. A bane to athletes from CrossFitters to Gymnasts. If you have ever done a muscle-up or ring dip for even low reps, you have probably met with ring rash at some point. 

Ring rash, otherwise known as a friction burn can be a painful experience and if left untreated can even leave a pretty nasty scar across both forearms.