For several years, whenever I manage to get to the gym, I have been wearing weightlifter's gloves. The result of this is that my hands are protected from the checkering on the barbells whilst pumping the iron, some bars of which are passing heavy -- not to mention saving me from the nasty germs one finds in a weight room ...Alas, the results are also such that my hands, which once would have qualified me to punch plates with Master Pan Qing Fu, or to haul nets in on a fishing boat, now qualify me for an express ticket on the Pansy Express, no stops, direct to Sissyville ...
Sad.
Thirty years ago I could shinny fifteen feet up a rope like it was no big deal. Now, after half that distance, my forepaws feel as if they'd been dipped in molten rock. The muscles are still willing, but the grip is saying, Lookit, you can climb down right now -- or you can fall -- your choice, 'cause I ain't holding you up no more ...
So very sad ...
I'm gonna have to get some climbing gloves. Fortunately, there are such things these days, goatskin models designed to protect one when rappeling across the face of El Capitan, or Kevlar, for sliding down ropes out of helicopters, and like that. Whether I'll be able to hold onto the rope with them or not remains to be be seen ...
Ah, the accomodations one must make for growing old ...
What gloves when ya lift???? Say it isn't so....LOL. That's like wearing running shoes instead of Chuck Taylors.
ReplyDeleteI wear Lee Haney half-fingered gloves at the gym. I do one-armed bent-over rows with the biggest dumbbells they have, which aren't that heavy, only a hundred pounds, but the checkered sleeves were chewing my hands up.
ReplyDeletePlus they don't have a proper chinning bar, so I usually use one of the machine-frames, and those are square-tubes and hard to grip.
I find that having callused hands doesn't help my guitar-playing or other more, um, genteel pursuits.
Haney, who was what? seven times Mr. Olympia, wore gloves. Good enough for him, good enough for