How to keep your hands together during the RKC

[0311bravo]

I've had a few people ask about this, so here it is.
If you adapt your technique to keep the handle from rotating through your palm and to keep it from rolling over your calluses (combined with proper callus maintenance) 9 out of 10 of you will not rip your hands. People with beefy smaller hands will have more trouble.
That being said, even with the best technique your hands will still dry out, crack, and rip during three days of kettlebell drills. However, if you perform proper maintenance of your hands during breaks you will dramatically lengthen the life of your hands.
The following drill along with the drop and catch technique are why I did not sustain a single hand tear during the RKC. During every break I did the following.
1. Wash off my hands with my water bottle.
2. Pat and blow my hands dry.
3. Apply a small amount of corn husker's lotion. Just enough to re-hydrate the skin.
4. Blow hands dry again.
5. Re-apply chalk.

That's it. I got this whole process down to a minute or two. I probably did it every half hour or hour, so don't think you can do it a couple times a day and skate. I also had my stone file out on the field with me and knocked down my calluses when I could before each prep.

[MKSchinabeck]

Jordan,
I sustained damage to my hands in places I had never ripped skin before during the RKC cert. My tears were not in the high risk areas. I lost skin in between fingers high up near the distal phalanges secondary to very high volume two handed swings. I think this was due to not being able to fit both of my hands on the handle at the same time during two handed swings. I don't think there is much that can be done to prevent this. In my personal training I rarely do two handed swings because of this issue.

[0311bravo]

I agree matt, the only way I've seen around that one is holding he pinky finger out. Tears on the side of the pinky are very common.

[Cecilia Tom, RKC]

My hands are not beefy but they're small. I'm always tearing the callus on the pinky side, esp. now that I'm trying to snatch a heavier weight. This morning I spent 20 minutes trying to excise the dried blood-stained sub-dermal layer that had been buried under a new callus. I go through this operation about once every two weeks I'm going to show up to base with nice hands tomorrow ...

[JSStevensRKC]

When the RKC was said & done I had at least seven blisters on each hand, my wrists were rubbed raw from friction burns and the backs of my legs were severely sun burned. My hands, wrists and legs were miserable on the 6 hour drive home. It took nearly two weeks for my hands to recover.

One stupid mistake I made was using duct tape on my hands. I had already developed blisters at the bases of each finger and decided to cover them with duct tape. The tape rolled up during snatches, the adhesive stuck to the kettlebell handle I was using during the high rep snatches. The handle became very sticky and tore the hell out of my hands at an accelerated rate. The blisters that annoyed me the most were the ones that developed in the creases at each finger joint and the outer edge of pinkey fingers.

Frequently practice lots of high rep ballistics before attending to accustom your hands to it. Learn what develops blisters and then avoid it.

Practice with Dragon Door kettlebells to get used to the handle size shape and texture.

Work on your technique so you lightly hook the handle on swings and snatches instead of forcefully gripping it.

Manage your calluses. Bring a pumice stone or callus shaver to use on your hands the night before each day of the RKC. Pay attention to all the calluses you develop even the one's in the creases of your finger joints. All raised calluses are likely candidates for becoming painful and blisters.

Wear a fingerless cloth glove on each hand during high rep swings and snatches ... you can make one out of a sock. Bring extras and keep them in your bag. Buy soft socks that wick away moisture such as adidas or under armour. These felt like heaven between my skin and the kettlebell after I'd already incurred severe blisters. I wish I'd have worn them the whole time and possibly prevented the blistering.

Check your hands often during the RKC after sets of swings and snatches.

If you do get blisters do not cover them at night while you sleep. If covered they will stay raw, moist and won't heal. Better to let them air out and dry. Raw, partially torn skin tears much easier on the second day than dry skin.

Save Your Wrists. During the hike pass on ballistics the inside of my wrists receive friction burns from rubbing against the material of pants/shorts. These friction burns become very irritated by sweat. Prevent this with high rep practice in advance and discovering what material works best for you. I'd also either tape my wrists or wear large wristbands to protect those areas of the inner forearm that rub during the hike pass.

Finally...Sunscreen.
Be sure to bring your own and use it liberally on exposed skin, especially on your legs. I saw a lot of severely burned legs during the June RKC, mine included. You'll spend a lot of time on your stomach outdoors exposing the back of legs to more sun than normal.

The RKC cert is difficult enough without annoying torn flesh, burned skin to contend with.

[mc]

Practicing taping your hands before the cert and working with the bell in snatches in particular is also a Good Idea.

many folks never use tape in their regular kb lives. The cert can be a different animal.

If a blister happens, if it opens at the cert, there's not really an option to stop, so a kind team assistant or TL may have tape available. So it's a good idea to have a taping pattern that works, and be comfortable with the feel of swinging and snatching with tape.

Recommended taping - Rif used to have a page up on gymnastic style taping for the rkc. Sadly it's no longer available, but Britt B kindly pointed to a similar resource lately of a vid on taping.

A couple notes on that vid:
1) from practice, you'll find that you want to make SURE the area right under the fingers has as little to no gap as possible since that's where blisters can happen

2) you may want to bend your hand up a bit when taping rather than keeping it totally flat, as the tape can bunch up in snatching if it's not on pretty taut.

3) as shown, the main taping is reusable in this style, and that's a plus.

You may not need/want to tape your hands during the cert; you may only feel one going; by day three you may be down to both needing it. To get a sense of this, take a look at the vids from the 2008 denmark cert - look at the hands and see how many are taped. They didn't start the cert that way.

You'll also note that some folks just wrapped across their hands - the gym taping version is MUCH better, longer lasting and effective for the duration.

No tape is great and ideal; knowing how to tape for that possibility is pretty good though too.

best
mc

[KJ43]

Here is a link to Rif's blog post on how to tape your hands.

Rifs Blog: How to tape your hands.

I've been doing Max VO2 lately and have had to do this a couple of times so far due to hot spots and blisters. It works great for lots of snatching.

I was going to ask the question if taping your hands like this was allowed at RKC.

[mc]

That's nice to see that Rif's openned his blog again - i have a link to that taping page on my blog and was about to change it. thanks for confirming.

Notes from above still apply on taping - especially practice - doing some high volume snatching will help identify
a) where the callus/blister hotspots are
b) whether your taping efforts are protecting them
c) how long your taping lasts - great to reuse 'em.
d) what tapes you like.

on the old forum we had a whole discussion about kinds of tape and widths to use.

In the US, it's johnson's coaching tape; in the UK/EU it's any "zinc oxide" tape, but you may want to check it out again before you get to the cert: some is a little tougher but doesn't tear; other stuff is adequate and has serrated edges so can tear without being cut.

It's the little things in prep for a perfect cert that can make such a difference

mc

[BSDS]

I was an assistant at the Sept. RKC. We spent a lot of time taping hands during every break. It seemed to me that there was a lot more taping then when I attended my first RKC. I think that what I noticed was an increased use of chalk. I saw some people coat their hands with it at every opportunity. I feel that chalk does have it's uses, but it is an abrasive substance. I very rarely use it and have had 4 tears in all of the years that I have been using KB's. jmho

Paul
Go Home Alive

[0311bravo]

Originally Posted by BSDS

I was an assistant at the Sept. RKC. We spent a lot of time taping hands during every break. It seemed to me that there was a lot more taping then when I attended my first RKC. I think that what I noticed was an increased use of chalk. I saw some people coat their hands with it at every opportunity. I feel that chalk does have it's uses, but it is an abrasive substance. I very rarely use it and have had 4 tears in all of the years that I have been using KB's. jmho

Paul
Go Home Alive

That's a great point. I also rarely use chalk in my training and only have used it during my two TSC's and the RKC, or when snatching heavy or bending. I've seen people absolutely caking their hands with it to where they look like they just got in a grappling match with a coke dealer, and it's very unnecessary. If you have any calluses the chalk will cause the handle to grab them much more than if you use none or use a light dusting.
I just want to point out that the whole idea of this was to promote the notion that it is possible to stop tearing your hands through proper prearatation and improved technique. I used to shred my hands until I took a hard look at what I was doing and fixed it. As Matt said, this will not save you from every tear and will not work for some. However, I think it's best to work on technique and prep than to sit around discussing how to best tape up your hands. Just my opinion.