WAG Hands rips and tape

[ncgymmom]

My dd gets rips all the times on her hands during the bars practice. Yesterday she had a meet and she could not compete on bars cause her hands were bleeding :-( it was so sad!! Her coaches do not let her use tape at practice NOR at meets, or any other sort of protection. I do not understand why. She has to keep practice with the injuries exposed and in my opinion that just makes it worse, and the coach said she just has to get used to do her bar routines with the injured hands and there is nothing anybody can do.

What I say: if you have a injury on your foot due to new shoes, the first thing you do is put a band aid to allieviate the pain, right? You don't just keep the new shoe dig into your foot, right?

Why can't she just use tape around the open sores?

 

[profmom]

What level is your DD? Seems kinda nuts to me, but I'm not a coach. My son will very occasionally get advised to brush off a mild rip if he goes to his coach and makes drama, but if it's open, it gets taped. For one thing, blood and fluid on the bars is a medical risk to other gymnasts!

Interested to hear what the coaches have to say.

 

[ncgymmom]

She is level 4 and you have a great point! Safety of the other gymnasts and hers!

 

[gymgal]

First thing I'd be worried about is why she is ripping so much. Dd got very few rips at that level. How is she preparing her hands before bars and how long are they on bars each practice? As for the coaches, you may want to play a go between here and talk directly. I usually let did handle most coach situations but this is a medical one and probably needs to be addressed more directly. Would want to know the reasoning behind risking infection , increasing pain, missing rotations, etc when there is an alternative

 

[Mack_the_Ripper]

I wouldn't worry about the number of rips. I have pretty sensitive skin in general and got tons of rips all throughout levels 4 and 5. I also bruise easily. Really, there isn't a lot you can do for rips. If they are bleeding profusely, they should be taped so as not to get blood on things. If the choice is between taping or missing a bar rotation at a meet, obviously you should tape! But the coach is right in that this may be something she has to learn to fight through until her hands get tougher. It isn't exactly an injury, like a broken foot or elbow or spinal problems - it hurts, but it isn't damaging to keep practicing with rips. If you stop practicing every time you get a rip, you're not going to learn much on bars...so they should be taped if they're bleeding.

 

[coachmolly]

Pushing through rips does help toughen up the hands, but making her continue to practice when her hands are bloody or have open wounds isn't the best idea either. Perhaps the coaches are worried that taping will take too much time or be too much of a distraction for her? If that's the case maybe you could pre-make some tape grips for her to help cover the really raw spots and she would just need a coach to help tape them on? It would take about 30 seconds from practice time, so could be done during a drink break.
Does your DD have especially dry skin? Sometimes that can cause excess ripping. You could try having her put something like bag balm on her hands at night and covering with gloves or socks and see if that helps heal old rips and make her hands less susceptible to new ones. It's not a cure-all, but could be helpful depending on her skin type.

 

[2gymmies]

In addition to what the others have said, I would like to point out that it is somewhat difficult to tape hands and continue working on them. If you tape around the hand and try to do bars, the tape will simply rolls up and not work anyway. If you make a tape grip like some of the others have mentioned, it will help if the rip is in the palm, but not in every place and it can sometimes cause the bar to be slippery or it can cause rips where the tape and the skin meet. Use preparation H on the open skin. We have also in the past for a meet used chloroseptic on the rip cause it numbs the skin and then chalk up and go. Her hands will get tougher, but it will take time.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

yikes! another DA coach. yikes!

 

[cbifoja]

yikes! Another da coach. Yikes!

?????? Da?

 

[Deleted member D3987]

dumb &*^. it takes 2 minutes to make a tape grip. and 30 seconds to put on a leather grip. it's a no brainer. that of which THIS coach apparently doesn't have...a brain.

 

[BlairBob]

Use some tape grips.

By the time a rip has reopened to the 3rd layer it's gonna start bleeding every time it opens up. You start getting real close to the nerves and they hurt like hell by that time. Then you just need to let them heel up and over.

Coach either doesn't have tape or doesn't want to make tape grips. They do take some time to make properly unless you just do a mummy hand wrap.

It is possible to make a set of tape grips and tape the hands if need be. It looks poor form but crossfitters do it all the time because they get some gnarly rips.

But seriously...no gymnast should be ripping so bad that it bleeds every time.

We got this issue when we changed our summer schedule to 5 days in a row, no saturdays. Our girls hands got really sensitive by Thursday. Pointless.