How To Buil Callusses

[[old] NJhsRower]

so could someone give me some advice on how to buil calluses besides to use moisturizers to keep your blisters for cracking and disappearing?

[[old] ancho]

Row a lot, hold through the first couple of weeks, and things will come from alone!<br />If blisters hurt or disturb too much, punch them carefully with a needle.<br />You may trim open blisters with some small scisors, to smoothen the "cutting edges".<br />Ah, and be carefull when handling fragile textiles (i.e. nylon tighs )

[[old] Spectre]

When I started rowing in Highschool the first boat rowers all swore that peeing on your hands and letting it dry worked the best...I would try that.

[[old] eastnortheast]

Seems to work for baseball players. Moises Alou, when he was with the Cubs, said that he pee'd on his hands to toughen them up. He is only one of a couple of major league baseball players who do not use a batting glove.

[[old] NJhsRower]

haha yea i heard about the pee trick in sports illistrated a while back<br /><br />i think i'd prefer blisters over peeing on my hands<br /><br />

[[old] ehagberg]

Wet tea bags supposedly work to toughen up the skin... and your hands won't smell like urine.<br />

[[old] jfo]

<!--quoteo(post=56534:date=Feb 20 2006, 11:26 PM:name=ehagberg)--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(ehagberg @ Feb 20 2006, 11:26 PM) </b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Wet tea bags supposedly work to toughen up the skin... and your hands won't smell like urine.<br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />My experience from rowing only in season tells me that you can not get around that.<br />You have to go through the pain and gloves and stuff will only move the blisters to<br />other parts of the hand. What doesn't kill you will make you tuff. <br />And if you row all year around you will only have go through it ones

[[old] ljwagner]

I think getting blisters means your hands are sliding a bit too much on the oar handle. That indicates your grip is off a bit, and as you pull, the oar squares itself, and your grip slips casuing friction and blisters. If your grip did not slip, you'd possibly develop tendonitis in one or both wrists from a bent wrist grip.<br /><br />Pay more attention to your grip. At rest, square your blade, and get your arms and wrists straight. Now rotate your hands to the recovery position without taking your hands off the oar handle. Your fingers should never leave the oar. <br /><br />In college, a few of us put some small grooves in the oar handles with a rat tail file, and smoothed them slightly. Those of us who did this developed very small calluses that corresponded to the grooves. I kept those small calluses for years, and never had blistered hands. I did not have much of either before the grooves, but the small calluses did help slightly with oar control.<br /><br />Pay more attention to your grip. The blisters will heal, and the skin under them will toughen into calluses.