Roughening Your Palms

[Chance]

I have hyperhidrosis, so my hands are always soaked in sweat. Once of the ways to mitigate this that has been recommended to me, is to roughen my palms. I’ve worked on that a bit, and it seems to be helping, but I’ve hit an upper bound on progress.

Basically, the two ways that occurred to me to roughen my hands were manual labor, and working out, with no gloves. There’s only so much manual labor to be done in our small suburban home though, and I can’t lift without gloves all the time, because my hands are just too slick to risk holding something above my head. I’m on a keyboard all day, and nothing I do is any impetus for my hands to toughen up. (To any women reading this: there is no faster way to emasculate a man than complimenting him on how soft his hands are ).

I’m curious if anyone else has gone about this in a certain way. I’ve considered putting grip tape on my lifting equipment (I work out at home), so I guess that’s one idea. I’ve also thought about maybe just rolling up some sandpaper, and rubbing my hands throughout the day.

Neither of those are especially elegant ideas though, so if anyone has any suggestions, I’m welcome to hear them.

On an unrelated note: Amazon recommended Fat Gripz to me the other day, and I quite like them so far. They're an easy way to get thick handles on your weight equipment, which is great for forearm / grip strength.

[Luke]

I don't (atleast I think I don't) have any medical condition making my hands sweaty, but they are constantly sweaty! At matches before I shoot I grab some dirt and rocks to dry them up, at church in usually casually fanning my bulletin at my right hand so when people shake my hand it's not all sweaty. They sweat all. The. Time. Very annoying. That said, I work out with no gloves and have done manual labor my whole life and my job requires my hands (heavy equipment mechanic). My hands have plenty of calluses. Pretty rough hands, even adds a bit of fire protection. That said, I bought anti skid tape at lowes and put it all over my new glock 17 gen4, still wasn't enough. I plan to have it stippled with the most aggressive pattern my guy has. My point is that having rough hands may help, but it probably won't get you were you want to be.

[Robinson]

Things that can serve to toughen up your hands and possibly be good for building strength: Handle bricks -- any clay bricks but especially the really rough ones with holes through them. Grab them, bang them together, break them, fill a bucket with the pieces and stick your hands in the bucket, use your imagination. Cheap and no fuss other than some mess.

Also innertubes -- fasten a length of innertube to a wall or post then perform actions such as grabbing, pulling, etc... and build up the intensity over time. This conditions the hands, grip strength, upper body.

[Chance]

My point is that having rough hands may help, but it probably won't get you were you want to be.

Nothing outside a physician's office is going to completely fix the problem, but this is the last thing I want to try before I go for botox injections. CertainDri, and other anti-sweat products, don't work, even after using them steadily for months. Chalk/dirt works alright, until I go to start loading mags, and then I have a fine layer of grit between every round, which leads to failures to feed, and lots of cleaning later. Working on my grip strength has been useful, but I can't simply crush everything. Yadda yadda yadda....

[NerdAlert]

Ropes work well, pulling weights with a rope or climbing a rope. Digging with a spud bar. Anything that will give you blisters will toughen your palms. I'm a blue collar guy and I pull wire which helps. Pull ups with a towel, rope, gi, etc.


Sent from my iPhone, I apologize in advance for typos.

"Gustatus similis pullus"

[Irelander]

Rope has worked good for me to toughen/roughen up my hands.

[Smash]

I think bare knuckle boxers soaked their hands in horse piss... Or is that a myth?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...eir_hands.html

[Chance]

I think bare knuckle boxers soaked their hands in horse piss... Or is that a myth?

I recall seeing an Irish bare knuckle boxer say he soaked his hands in gasoline, but I don't want to do that either.

[Hambo]

I know a female golf pro who has impressively calloused hands.

[Hizzie]

Lifting chalk or Metolious Eco Ball (drying agent for rock climbing) will help the gym.