If you are a CrossFitter you know about calluses and rips. There are two circumstances that make your hands susceptible to ripping. They are:

a) Soft hands with little or no callus build-up

b) Too much callus buildup that makes bumps or ridges on the surface of your hands.

It is best to be somewhere in the middle of these two situations. You need to have smooth and supple calluses that protect the hands but remain intact when working out. It is very important to know how to care for your calluses properly to prevent tears. Once you get tears on your hand, it makes it very hard and painful to do pullups.

Once you get a rip you need to start the healing and maintenance process immediately! If you have fairly thin skin and it is detached, you need to pull it off or cut it off with scissors. If you have very thick callus skin, you will need to cut it with nail clippers of scissors. After you have trimmer the callus on a fresh wound, please follow the next steps:

1. Wash your hands with soap and water.
2. Apply a generous amount of Neosporin to the fresh wound.
3. Cover the wound with a small bandage or tape. This will allow the Neosporin to do its job overnight to keep the area moist and prevent infection.

Note: If you have Vitamin E oil capsules, please put this on your wound instead of  Neosporin. Vitamin E oil does a wonderful job in healing the wound quite fast.

Take a look at this video from CrossFit LA to see on how to care for your calluses properly!

How to take care of calluses on your hands from CrossFit Los Angeles on Vimeo.