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. 

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 maintenance2) Post-rip repair3) 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,...

If you ever have to do a half marathon row in competition, or if you’re looking to challenge yourself and put yourself through the pain the individual athletes did last summer at the CrossFit Games, here’s some advice from Nathalie Maurer, former Canadian National Team rower, to help you mitigate the pain and maximize your performance. Maurer competed for Canada at both the 2006 and 2008 World Rowing Championships, and she won two medals – one gold and one silver - at the 2007 Pan American Games.   Nathalie Maurer (far right) with the Canadian National Team   5-Steps to Preparation: 1). UNISUIT: Rowers wear unisuits, a tight one-pieces spandex suit, to avoid any pieces of clothing getting caught anywhere...

I speak from experience when I say, if you’re ever crazy enough to try a half marathon row, like the one Dave Castro programmed for the fittest athletes in the world at the 2013 CrossFit Games this summer, don’t do what I did.

What did I do?

Take Care of Your Thumbs!

That's the advice Rachel Siemens had to offer when we asked her how a CrossFit athlete turned Olympic weightlifter (who recently competed at her first international weightlifting competition in Russia) should take care of their hands. 

Although pull-ups and toes-to-bars are harder on her hands than Olympic weightlifting is, lifting barbells still causes her some problems from time to time.

“My hands are pretty much one giant callous. The boys love that, right?” she joked.

Sometimes her hands get specifically bad when she mixes it up and trains with the men’s bar. “I guess my callous build up specifically for the women’s bar and when I use the men’s bar, I expose a weak section of my thumb to the bar,” she explained.

Siemens admitted she doesn’t take care of her hands enough in terms of sanding them down with a pumice stone or a callous shaver; it’s her thumbs that cause her the biggest issues.

“When volume is high, I wrap athletic tape around my thumbs, and it helps for gripping the bar as well as protecting my skin.”

Ben Poss still remembers the horrors of his hands when he completed his Russian KB certification RKC (Russian Kettebell Challenge). It was a three-day course, meaning his hands didn’t get a break for three entire days.

One of the things he had to do on the first day was 100 KB snatches with a 24 kg KB in less than five minutes without putting the KB down.

“Those three days of high volume KB training was the most punishment my hand have ever suffered,” said Poss.

He added: “Both hands had torn calluses by the third day, and my hands were absolutely raw by the end of the graduation workout – The Deep Six.”

Here is a link to the workout if you would like to try it yourself: http://kbforum.dragondoor.com/kettlebells-strength-conditioning-forum/138876-rkc-deep-six.html

After years of experience, and tearing up his hands numerous times, Poss can be considered an expert in the field of hand care for kettlebell athletes. 

Meet Kate Richardson:

Kate learned about hand rips at a young age. The two-time Canadian Olympic gymnast was already going through multiple rolls of athletic tape per week at the age of eight.

Although gymnasts wear grips when they perform on the bars, rips sometimes still happen, making bar routines painful, not to mention psychologically daunting....

That moment when you’re hanging onto a bar, oar, barbell, kettlebell, and you can feel the skin on your hands start to shift…

Although your shifting skin provides little physical evidence of any kind of blemish yet, you know you’re about to get a blister. And a rip.

Gymnasts, CrossFit athletes, rowers, rock climbers, among other “hand sport” athletes are all too familiar with this feeling.  It’s not the end of the world if the following day is your planned rest day, but if you’re in the middle of the Regional CrossFit competition, or sprint repeats in preparation for the Olympics, curse words start forming in your head, sometimes even bubbling out your mouth.

You need your hands to perform.

In the upcoming series of posts, we will explore the hand care needs of various elite level athletes in different sports, and demonstrate how RIPT Skin Systems' 3 Phase Reinforcement kit can help you keep your skin in the game...