Gloves for rowing

[Hanzo]

Right, as a man of this centrury I'm mostly stuck behind a keyboard and my hands are not accustomed to a honest days work. As a result, but hands blisters up pretty quickly on the erg, and I really need a pair of gloves to avoide the worst of it. I have had a nice thin pair I have been using, but they are badly worn out, and pieces keeps falling of and onto the railing.I have bought a couple of gloves on the internet, but they all have nice soft gel pads, and I dont feel like I get a good grip over the handle with this pads. Anyone else using gloves? Any chance anyone could share some gloves, preferable on Ebay or Amazon if possible.

[Citroen]

Just bear it out for a week. You'll only get hot sweaty and soggy, soft hands with gloves. The skin damage and infection risk from rowing with damp hands will be worse than any damage from rowing without gloves.

[gregsmith01748]

I agree that a couple of weeks of rowing will generally be enough to form callouses so that you don't have much of an issue with blisters. Some people still get blisters, and often is is caused by employing a death grip on the handle. Keeping the finger loose and even "playing piano" with your fingers during recovery usually helps a lot.

I have heard of some folks using these: http://www.newgrip.com/rowing.html

I can't vouch for them because I haven't tried them, but it seems to be designed to avoid hot hands, but provide some blister protection.

[Carl Watts]

I just have about four pairs of fingerless Cycle gloves that work just fine.

None of them have Gell in and they all work well. No blisters and they absorb the sweat so greatly reducing the chances of you letting go of the handle.

I find a few pairs are required to allow enough time to wash and dry them. They simply stink after a couple of days otherwise.

[quickstepper]

Also... if you are using a brand new rower the grip on the handle will be a bit rough. Give it about 100k to wear down the grip a bit, either that or have your hands get used to it. Personally I think it was the grip that wore down since I rowed a lot more on the rower at my gym and didn't get any blisters but when I got my new rower I got blisters the first week of rowing.

I don't like wearing gloves at any time so I prefer developing the calluses.
Regards,
Marco

[jamesg]

an honest days work

30-40 minutes is usually enough.

The handles are rubber so no grip is needed and the glove is already on the machine, just hook on with fingers and hang thumbs below. You'll get calluses under the first joint of one or two fingers, nothing else, and these are easily taken off by filing or with a very sharp knife.

You could try pulling long soft strokes to begin with (low drag), rather than short hard ones: the work is the same but training is a lot easier that way, so can be more effective.

One of the purposes of rowing is to get harder hands; don't short sell yourself. You can't expect to get immensely fit, strong and flexible like all of us, by rowing, without the place where the force goes showing some signs of the effort. Indeed the more immensely etc you are, the more you'll need those hard hands.

If afloat there's ice on your blades, gloves may be handy for a few minutes, but then they'll get too hot. Depends on your constitution, if you usually have warm hands, it means there's plenty of blood circulating there, it has to cool off somewhere.

[Rob]

Here's another option: I haven't tried them yet, but I was considering buying a pair for the spring.

[Hanzo]

Guess I must be using a death grip, I have been rowing the last 10 minutes without gloves for the last months, but I'm still blistering up. Not badly, not so that it's painfull but I do have frequent blisters after a good session. But, when I'm using gloves I have the whole handle in my grip, not like JamesG says hanging on with the fingers. I will try to use just the fingers and see if that helps. Currently I'm getting the blisters just where the finger starts (Norwegian, not sure what's the correct term).

I dont mind using gloves, and I like that it's easy to wipe my forhead with the gloves and still have a good grip. If I wipe my forhead with just the hands quickly I lose the grip. Ofcourse the easy remedie for that it just to use a towl :p

[DanielJ]

Used to struggle with callouses all the time. Then I loosened my grip. I also gained about a second of /500m pace across the board when I did it, I guess because it allows a better finish.

Your fingers should just hook the oar. Anything more is a waste of energy.

[gregsmith01748]

You might want to try a pair of sweat bands on your wrists. If your hands are wet, that makes them nice and soft for blisters. Also, if you row with gloves, and take them off for the last bit, the same thing will happen. You'd be better of starting without and then putting them on.

[Cyclist2]

When I was actually rowing, no gloves, got calluses. On the erg, however, I get blisters. I've only been erging for 28 years, so maybe my hands are still soft, but I need gloves. I have tried and tried to build up calluses, but something about the sharp catch just doesn't like my fingers. All the above advise is good, however, no arguments. I found that baseball batting gloves work best for me. They are designed for curling around a round handle of about the same size and are thin, not hot, dry quickly. Some have grippy stuff on the fingers, too.

I always wear headbands, so I don't have to wipe my head. For longer sessions, I put on wristbands to keep the sweat off my hands.

Find what works for you, there are no rules.

[gregsmith01748]

Find what works for you, there are no rules.

+1

[Hanzo]

Just some short feedback. The last few sessions, I have used no gloves from the start and so fare no issues with blisters. Before, when I used to row without gloves the last 10 minutes, I frequently had blisters even after that. I only had a couple of sessions, but the advice of not rowing with wet hands does indeed seem to work alot better. Thanks again, I must say I'm very impressed with the level of feedback this forum has to offer.

[mg6682]

Once and a while the first joints of my middle and index fingers will get pretty raw and I'll wear gloves. I wear a pair of the mechanix brand vented gloves from rogue (mainly cuz they come in xxl) and they work very well. Make sure you take care of your hands too - get a callous knife and some climbing salve (works wonders).