skin tears (and blood) during competition

[jamesgrahame]

What do you do when your skin tears during a competition?

Is it an urban myth to use super glue or the 'fake skin' you can buy from climbing shops?

Also, in competition, what's best advice for when a lifter is bleeding on the equipment?

You can't clean the equipment thoroughly without effecting subsequent lifts....does the bleeding-lifter have to stop competing?

I lost some skin yesterday and was bleeding a little. I asked if everyone was happy to share the equipment with me and they all
enjoyed carrying on and whooping my a*se at the 1hand-lift. But I am not sure what I should have done if it was a comp and someone refused to share the equipment.

[Steve Gardener]

We tape it up using sterile plasters. I think David's covered it in event rules before. The gist is thus. If you have an injury pre event show it to the ref and providing he thinks it's the real deal you'll be allowed to use band-aids etc. Ditto if it skin gets torn in events etc. What IS NOT allowed is taping up of fingers etc to get an advantage as one might due using a hook grip in olympic lifting (watch some videos and you'll see thumbs are often taped) where no injury exists.

That said we've all torn skin at times and I know my v-bar and pinch have blood on them. Chalk is sterile (kills germs by taking away the moisture they'd live on) and is good on wounds. But I'd clean up the equipment, tape up wounds, use chalk and carry on. Unless it was stupid like Chris James bicep tear which we more or less gaffered/taped for support, added a sling and sent him home via the hospital.

By cleaning I mean a simple wipe over rather than taking all the chalk off and then adding some nice fresh chalk to it and rubbing it in.

For small tears, as I have had in training, I've found a single square of toilet tissue/bog roll folded and placed over the area and held in place by the grip doesn't help me lift more but stops the wound getting worse. Again mostly pinch and V-bar. The only other lift I ever got tears on was using a small dinnie ring replica made for me by Stan Pike which would drag skin on my third finger. I think this was the same finger and similar lift that had David Horne pull the tendon off on. Nasty.

[jamesgrahame]

Thanks for the detailed response.

I will also have a look for the event rules you mentioned.