Gloves or No Gloves that is the Question
Its a hot topic this week in the obstacle racing world.
Do you wear gloves to train and race in?
Is one of your fears that you will fall off the monkey bars as you feel the rungs slip from your fingers?
Its a tricky topic and one that always comes up with my clients.
When you are training do you find you are getting callouses on your fingers and palms of your hands?
This can be a great opportunity to try different gloves out, especially if you are training hard and want to improve your grip strength so you master pull ups and can hold you dead hang for as long as possible. I'm sure you have found when you are putting in the training hours your hands get sore and it can prevent you from improving on the exercise.
However when it comes to racing and your hands get wet and muddy wearing gloves isn't always the best thing as they will affect your grip. As they become very slippy and your worst nightmare of slipping off the obstacle can become a reality.
But safety is a massive issue.
If you are racing and its freezing you want to be able to feel your fingers when it comes to obstacles you have to grip onto, in this case neoprene gloves are a great idea. A few of my clients wore these at Tough Guy this year and they swear by them. When they got hot they took them off or if they felt they needed more grip they took them off and tucked them into the leggings to put back on afterwards.
Personally I don't tend to wear gloves, I haven't found ones yet that are grip enough. I like to feel the obstacle on my bare hands to get the most from the movement in them especially if it is for a race. However when I'm training I tend to wear finger less lifting gloves, purely to prevent loads of callouses forming and my very delicate hands getting ripped to shreds!
So really its your choice, find a pair you like a practise with them, my tip if you do decide to wear them is always look for ones that stay as sticky as possible even when wet and muddy.
Thanks Gemma 'off to work on my grip' Spackman
PS. The new and improved Blast Programme is live again and we are looking for new people to come and join us. If you wan to work on your grip and make sure you can get over any obstacle drop me a message and we can have a chat.
