How do you guys keep your grip on the sticks during long freestyle sessions?

That dent in your thumb pad is basically a pressure bruise from death-gripping, and yeah, most of us have been there. I flew pinch for years and my early sessions on the sim looked exactly like that, sore pad, dented skin, whole forearm tight by the end of a pack. Two things fixed it for me. First, the tension is a throttle management problem, not a grip problem. When your thumbs are locked white-knuckle style, your inputs get choppy and that's why your lines get sloppy during rolls. The fix that actually helped was doing slow laps around the field or in the sim where the only goal is holding a smooth altitude line with the throttle. You can't white-knuckle that drill because it forces you to be loose. Once the relaxed grip became my default, the flips got cleaner too, because the tension was causing the overcorrection, not the other way around.

Second, the stick ends matter more than people admit. Aggressive knurling on the stock ends feels grippy at first but it chews up your thumb pad over a long session. I swapped to taller, smoother stick ends and it made a bigger difference than I expected. Taller ends also give your thumb more room so you're not digging the pad into the stick cap on every roll. Some guys run a light layer of grip tape on the ends, but honestly with smoother ends you probaly won't need it. Don't switch to thumb on top because of this. If pinch feels natural after months, that's your muscle memory talking, and relearning a grip will cost you weeks of progress. A few people in this thread allready made the case for pinch and I'd agree, it's the better style for precision once it's conditioned. And your thumbs do harden up. Same deal as guitar players building calluses, give it a couple weeks of flying and the soreness mostly goes away. Until then, stop the session when the dent shows up, pushing thru it just teaches your hands bad habits.

I really disagree with the idea that you shouldn't switch to thumb on top just because of muscle memory. If the current pinch grip is causing physical pain and ruining your input quality, then abandoning it isn't a waste of time. It is just another way to physically control the stick. While the relearning period is definately annoying, if the alternative is fighting intense hand soreness and tension, it seems like switching is a necessery trade off. I've had to change my whole setup once because the stock feel was physically painful, and the shift felt awkward for weeks before things stabilized.

I've been flying these rigs long enough to know that sometimes the problem isn't the stick itself. Before you change your grip or buy fancy tape, check your transmitter settings. If the dead zone is set too tight, you are forcing the joysticks more than necessary just to get a decent input. That forces the whole hand to grip harder, leading to tension and those sore thumbs you are describing. When I was starting out, I used a specialized glove that cut away excess material and stabilized the fingers. It helped keep the grip loose and the stick movement smooth without needing that death grip feel.

I think you might be missing somthing simple regarding the controller itself. Early on when I was struggling with inputs, I found that the weight of the device was making my movements feel too frantic. I decided to add some extra weight to the whole stick assembly using a small counterweight piece near the base. It added about 12 grams to the overall mass, which fundamentally changed how the sticks felt in my hands. This subtle heft really helped me dial in smooth, consistent inputs during high-speed maneuvers.