Climbing hand care

[rydra_wong]

Since this came up tangentially in the Everything You Always Wanted To Know ... thread, I thought I'd open it up into its own post:

How do you look after hands that are shredded/scraped/blistered, and avoid having your climbing hampered by a skin shortage?

For what it's worth, my chief weapons are fear, surprise, and a fanatical devotion to The Dawes:

*Climb On Bar or Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream. I haven't picked a favourite yet; in my experience, either works very well for healing blisters and scrapes.

(There are various products on the market, especially in the US; what you want is a mildly antiseptic grease or goop, that will help heal the skin without softening it in the way that a water-based lotion can.)

The latter is a known trick of the trade for boulderers, and it never ceases to amuse me that I can have chats with hardcore rugged climbing boys about Elizabeth Arden.

*Finger tape! Very handy for covering up blisters, flappers, and abraded or frayed bits.

*Those Ped-Egg microplane grater things sold for shaving dead skin from your feet. Yes, it's disgusting (in a very satisfying way), but they're perfect for smoothing down callouses that have become hard or ridged, so you avoid them ripping off or having blisters develop underneath them, without losing the toughness of the skin.

What works for you?

Comments

[pellucid]

I will have to try some cream/goop of some sort, and I should also be better at filing down my callouses. I just got back from bouldering (first V2 in way more than six months, WOOT!), and while I taped two of the worst callouses as a precautionary measure, I still ended up ripping off a huge one on another finger. Bah!

Clearly the real solution is to get good enough that I'm not scrabbling so badly at the big, frictiony holds on the V1s, but in the meantime I've got to do something about my poor skin...

[rydra_wong]

Clearly the real solution is to get good enough that I'm not scrabbling so badly at the big, frictiony holds on the V1s

*g* I can monitor my progress on any given wall by how close the scrapes/blisters are to my fingertips. Verticals and mild overhangs: moving along my fingers in that direction. A few times I've even hurt my fingertips, and felt very proud. Steep overhangs: still roughing up the base of each finger.

(Scrapes and grazes anywhere from elbows to ears: I fell down the slab.)

[jumpuphigh]

I use fingernail files to smooth callouses. :)

I like the Climb On bar. I've never tried the E.A. 8 hr. cream.

[rydra_wong]

I use fingernail files to smooth callouses. :)

I've heard that sandpaper works well, too.