Hi there.
Got a quick rowing question. We’ve just switched from wood to plastic / rubber blade handles, and they’ve ripped up my hands something fierce. I’ve got nasty opened blisters on my left hand (outside hand thankfully so at least I am pulling correctly :)) but was looking for any advice on blister care.
Any ideas here? Tired of my hands looking like hamburger after an outing for a couple days.
Thanks,
GomiBoy
Google ‘blister care’ and read up. There are hundreds of articles and lots of common advice.
I would recommend you pay particular attention to infection prevention and note that you have a responsibility to others to not walk around common locker-type areas with open wounds. There are some nasty and deadly infections being shared among young athletes.
Read up and ‘good luck’.
I used to get blisters too when rowing, ick. While I had the blisters I use weight lifting/bicycley gloves (with the fingers cut out) then when they healed changed the grip to put as much weight on the fingers and less on the palms (I used to get blisters bad on the skin opposite of the knuckles). That way when your pulling the oar toward you, your hand moves with it, not causing the skin to rub as much against the oar.
Not so much looking for post-blister care, as I know how to deal with that (New Skin ™ rocks!) but more looking for strategies to avoid them in the first place. I’ll google it, but I know there are some rowers on the boards who might know tips and tricks.
I don’t walk around with raw skin - rowing on the Thames means lots of rats, which means disease, which means I don’t mess around with open wounds much - don’t fancy getting some rat-borne disease like Weir’s Disease!
More like I am looking for ways to avoid getting blisters in the first place, or at the least ways to harden the callouses on my hands to avoid them. Right now, after one outing on Wednesday, I’ve got a massive open blister on my left hand, near the knuckle on the palm-side for my pointer finger, which I’ve painted with New Skin and sealed up, but which will make outings on Sunday that much less fun.
Loosen your grip. Blisters are almost always caused by gripping too tightly. Are you guys sculling or sweeping? (I’m guessing sweeping, I don’t think anyone’s used wood sculling oars in a quarter century) For sweep, your outside hand forms kind of a claw and you’re just using it to pull into the chest. Kinda like how your hands are when you hang off a chin up bar. Never feather with the outside hand, if you are, STOP IT, you look like a noob and it’s wrong. The inside hand does the feathering but that shouldn’t be a death grip either. Even if you’re having set or chop issues, try to keep a relaxed grip.
Even with a loose grip, almost everyone initially get blisters when they switch. I’ve never found a good way to get rid of them faster. When they’re oozing and painful, I keep band-aids (plasters) on them when I’m doing stuff but I really think they heal better exposed to air. Anyway, blisters are a rowing tradition; they’ll heal soon enough and pain is ephemeral.
Thanks for the tips; I am absolutely not feathering with my outside hand, and do try the hook hand, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I was gripping too tightly. We’re rowing crew, not sculling - it’s an 8.
And I certainly don’t wanna look more like a noob - I’m sure my stroke already shows people that I am one! 
Oh, and steadierfooting - coach says no gloves. he claims we lose control over the blades, and it actually makes blisters worse rather than better.
Yeah, don’t wear gloves. That screams NOOB more than anything. 
(BTW, glad to hear your not feathering with the outside hands, that can be a hard habit to break. I know guys who’ve taped forks, tines down, over their outside wrist in order to stop the habit) Plus, you need to learn how to deal with them. Blisters can actually be kinda helpful: they force you to adjust and loosen your grip to avoid pain. You can try to tape up your hands (with medical tape) before practice but, in my experience, the tape always folds over or shifts and can give you worse blisters. If you try the band-aid route, look for the ones that are that thin foam material; they seem to stick better than the traditional ones. They’ll still probably work loose mid-row though.
The worst blisters I ever got was when I rowed a marathon (full 26.2 miles) in a quad and hadn’t been sculling for very long. Even worse, for the last two miles we were bow-to-bow with an 8+ so were at pressure. My hands looked like they’d been burned. Here’s a recent pic of my left hand and my current blisters. It’s from my first time sculling in several months (I’d mostly been sweeping) and I always get blisters when I switch. But I kept my grip fairly loose so they didn’t burst and didn’t hurt too much.
Looks like my left hand now! At least the right the blisters didn’t pop - went out on Sunday in an 8 and a 4, but was #3 both times so this time my right hand got toasted. Luckily the blisters didn’t get torn open, though, so it’s sore and tight, but doesn’t feel on fire.
One good thing about being a noob - at least I get to switch sides and my blisters are a lot more equal
Not from rowing but a rope burns. The only outer skin in my palms were the too few blisters that weren’t torn away. I soaked in hydrogen peroxide twice daily and left the blisters alone.