yeah um thats a waste of tape in my opinion and no i dont put my thumb under the bar or n/e thing wierd like that. i first used grips wen i was like 10 yrs old and they were the crappy non-expensive kind so yeah im hoping to try dowel soon but idunno

if u tape it right, like with two strips on each hand, kind of looking like a 'tape grip' then u can reuse that part a few times, which is actually usually what a lot of people at my gym do for under their grips if they do a lot of bars. ya, the crappy grips that aren't dowel suck! u'll probably like the dowel kind much better! dowels r nice for the grip u get on the bar.

There's a couple pictures of the taping you can do on your hands at http://gymnasticscoaching.com/?p=2110 that we're talking about here, for under your grips. This one shows the tape being around just the middle finger; you can also do it around the middle and ring finger, to get a wider surface area more easily - I like the 2-fingers way better, it's comfortable: Here's one way how to do it, using the sports tape (Tape-O sells good sports tape: http://www.gymchat.com/listings/details.php?listing=26 , good pricing for a box). -Unroll the tape roll and rip off the amount of tape that is enough to go from your wrist, around your finger, and back to your wrist again - if your coach is doing it, he/she will probably stick the end of the tape on your wrist first, and then use one hand to hold down the tape on your wrist while using his/her other hand to roll-out the tape, and then wrap it around your finger and put it back to your wrist, then rip the tape off, to have the correct amount of tape ripped off easily - if you're taping your own hands, it's easier to rip the tape off from the roll, then take the strip of tape and stick one end to your wrist, bring it to your finger, wrap it around the middle of ring finger (whichever you would like first), then bring the other end of the tape back to your wrist. -Then repeat it for your other finger - middle or ring finger - or if you would like wrap both around your middle finger - but it's easier to get the wider suface area with wrapping the tape around the middle finger and ring finger, rather than just the middle finger, and it's really comfortable. -After you're done with these 2 strips of tape, you rip off another piece of tape to go around your wrist to keep these strips of tape in place - again, you can either rip off the tape from the roll, or your coach can place the end of the tape to your wrist, hold it down with one hand on your wrist while rolling out the tape with his/her other hand, and then wrap one layer around your wrist to hold the 2 strips of tape in place. If you also get rips around your wrist sometimes, from the grips sliding to the side sometimes, you could also rip some small pieces of tape (like maybe about 2 inches long or something), and place it going from your wrist to the side of your hand where you get those kind of rips. -After you're done with bars, take the tape from your wrist off, and you can keep the 2 strips of tape that are now stuck together kind of like a bars grip - when you reuse them, just put your fingers back into the tape grips holes, and tape the end of them on your wrists again. Easy! and great! you can do a lot more bars like this, especially if you rip really fast!!

Also, when you're wrapping the tape going from your wrist, around your finger, and back to your wrist, making the strips, don't make it tight, the tape shouldn't be pulled - which is true in general, huh?! :D

Also...by keep practicing bars! It builds up your callouses and your skin. I had a few months break and went back to the gym today and did like 45 minutes of bars and got small rips on my hands and on the sides on the wrists, using the regular way of using tape grips under my grips like I usually do. So, keep working on bars helps to build up your skin!

I use the tape strips method around the ring/middle fingers on each hand, right under the grips. It works great! And you can do bars much longer. The strips method is much better than creating a tape glove which someone at my gym used to do - you can feel the bar better because it's less tape between your hand and the grip and the bars and also it's not really necessary to do the tape glove - the tape strips work well with some strips of tape on the side if you get rips from the grips moving to the side sometimes and the friction from that.

[QUOTE=dw;35206]This is kind of like chalk talk, but it doesn't fit in that thread...hahaha lol. ok, anyways, :D what do you guys do to not rip? I just got my grips a couple weeks ago after going into level 5, to help with the not ripping part. Any thing else to do?[/QUOTE] Ok this is not much but at least it is something. Anyway do not put lotion on your hands before practice. Thats what my coach Mara Memmel ( Chellsie Memmels sister) had told me when I got my grips. Also make sure your grips are on tight because I got a really bad rip on the side of my hand from my new grips. Good Luck in team 5 mandm:-P

[quote=mandm;88477]Ok this is not much but at least it is something. Anyway do not put lotion on your hands before practice. Thats what my coach Mara Memmel ( Chellsie Memmels sister) had told me when I got my grips. Also make sure your grips are on tight because I got a really bad rip on the side of my hand from my new grips. Good Luck in team 5 mandm[/quote] If you do put lotion on your hands before practice put chalk on them before you put on your grips - also good idea to chalk before even doing conditioning on the bars like pull-ups etc. so that you don't slip and also don't make the bars slippery. I got side rips too before, at the bottom of my hands/wrist - tape works to not get that. It's from the friction with the grips moving around, and the wrist guards don't cover that high up. How old is Chellsie Memmel's sister Mara?

I think Mara memmel is 19 years old but i do not no for sure. I love having her as a dance coach. She is also my 2nd regular coach.