WAG Why do some kids rip or not?

[MaryA]

DD almost never rips. She is a level 8 and in the gym 20 hours a week. At the moment she is in a boot so she is doing double and sometimes triple bar rotations, but still no rips. She doesn't do anything special to her hands... No filing callouses or moisturizing or anything. When she has had them in the past it was when she was at a lower level and had a sudden jump in hours, like going to gymnastics camp or something.

I know some other kids get them frequently. What makes some kids more prone to rips than others?

Just curious...

 

[Shoebug]

From a medical standpoint, here is what I can think of:

Callouses are produced from an increased friction to a certain area of skin, and the body's sense of need to thicken the skin to maintain an intact integument. Hence, thicker skin on the palms of your hands and soles of your feet, and real thin skin on your eyelids. The increased friction of the bars on certain areas of the hands causes the callouses, and the body will continue to produce the thickened skin as long as the irritant is there. IF there is a break in the amount of use, the body begins to produce thinner skin in the area under and around the callous. When the gymnast once again attempts to use the bars, due to the thinner, more brittle skin under the callous, it peels it right off. A somewhat comparable idea would be trying to peel a label off of a bottle, it is hard to take off. Spray some WD40 on it to loosen the grip, and it peels right off. I believe that the lack of use of the callous causes it to weaken at the base.

 

[MILgymFAM]

I wish I knew. DD has literally had a rip every time she trains bars. Her hands look horrendous.

 

[NewtoGym]

Is your dd doing lots of giants? That is when my dd started ripping a lot! not sure if that matters or not...

 

[iwannacoach]

There's two distinctive types of rips. One is when tender/soft/thin skin bunches up and gets pinched enough to roll the skin away in a sheet during a circle or catch skill. The other one is when a callous builds up thick enough to be grabbed by the bar and separated from the skin under it.

Kids that don't rip are lucky, and seem to build callous at just the right rate to allow dead skin to wear off the top of the callous in equal proportion to the callous being built up from underneath.

 

[gymdog]

I don't rip and I just have palm skin that is not dry or sweaty. People who rip a lot usually have sweaty hands. I imagine really dry hands could cause it too but usually palm skin isn't like that for most people.

 

[sfts]

I have unusually soft/flexible skin so I rip a lot in the first manner iwannacoach described. I guess the plus side is that my callouses (such as they are) are small enough and soft enough that they don't rip or even require much maintenance.

 

[gymgymgymnast08]

I always ripped a lot and I had really sweaty hands too. I think my record was 16 rips at one time. No one else at my gym ripped much but I also took way more turns on bars than anyone else.

 

[Ponyshine]

I haven't ripped for quite a long time, but I do find that my hands often feel different every session - sometimes they feel really sore and ready to rip which really affects my bar work, but then other days my hands feel great & I feel I can do bars much better now. Anyone else have a similar problem & how do you overcome it?

 

[wallflower]

DD never gets rips either MaryA. She did some when she was younger and lower level. Sometimes when she gets new grips she may get an irritated spot where the grip rubs, but not rips. I can't actually remember the last time she had a rip.

 

[kandkfunk]

My DD never rips any more and she has pretty sweaty palms. She ripped when she was younger, but since she started using grips she really hasn't had any to speak of. She does have very callused hands though. She has them on her palm under her fingers and in the middle of her palm. She has never treated them or done anything special with them. They just never rip off. One former teammate, on the other hand, used to rip after almost every bar rotation. I felt bad for her.

 

[Fliptwisttumble]

Anyone have experience with what I'll call Thumb rips?

DD has started front giants on a regular bar. Her thumbs, where they attach to the nail, are sort of ripping. She says it is very painful (she's used to regular rips, and her poor little hands are awful, but she is very used to it and doesn't care).... But this new thing is a bother to her.

(Sorry for the sideline....)

 

[skschlag]

We have one boy that does that. Coach says it is from"death gripping" the bar. Just holding it way too tight.