Wrist Pain Learning To Play Guitar
May 3rd, 2010
A challenge the majority of students experience is that they experience hand and wrist pain learning to play guitar. As it is probably going to affect you too don’t let it put you off. Learning to play guitar is quite a physical activity for your arms, hands and fingers. Really it is tantamount to partaking of a new and vigorous sport!
Think of learning to play guitar in terms of it being a sport you would get yourself ready for it accordingly. Recognise that pain is your body’s way of telling you it has a problem and you need to listen to that voice.
Taking part in any sport requires of you that you be as fit and alert as you can be and that you are relaxed and in the right frame of mind.
Holding that train of thought but applying it to your new activity of playing the guitar it would be a good idea to have a routine that has you appropriately prepared before each practice session because that would probably reduce the chance of your suffering with hand and wrist pain learning to play guitar.
Any form of exercise, but certainly a walk before playing the guitar is both good for the circulation and effective in clearing and sharpening the mind. Give it a try and you will find yourself to be much more focused and motivated afterwards.
Try and make it so that you have a clear and tidy place in which you can be with your guitar. A comfortable chair or stool is so important too. You need to be comfortable to play guitar properly. Your head should be clear. You should feel stress free and relaxed after all you are going to enjoy this.
Make it a point to wear comfortable clothing that allows plenty of freedom of movement. Shoulders, arms and wrists need to be totally unrestricted. Ideally you should avoid wearing a watch, particularly on your fretting wrist.
A good deal has been talked about stretching and warming up exercises and I have covered some of these in another article, sore guitar fingers! Suffice it to say that before picking up the guitar some stretching apart of the fingers and perhaps a little grip strengthening with a soft ball or the like is all that you need. Quite the best way of warming up, much as you might jog a while before you start sprinting, is to just quietly and slowly strum a few chords or play some gentle guitar songs to loosen up.
As you start to play the muscles and tendons in your hands along with muscles in the wrists, arms and shoulders are asked to move, stretch and support in positions that are quite unknown to them. Is it surprising then that at first they react by giving a degree of hand and wrist pain learning to play guitar?
With your shoulder and arm raised supporting the neck of the guitar the muscles in the arm are held in a new and strange position for a prolonged period of time. The blood flow to the hands is reduced because your hands are usually held down not up. Any reduction of blood flow will cause pins and needles and will result in aching in the arm and hand.
The hand and wrist pain in learning to play guitar is made worse by having long practice sessions. Avoid it by keeping them short. Put the guitar down and walk around periodically. Stretch your hands rotate your arms and wrists and grab a coffee. This is a learning curve for you, for your arms, your wrists, your hands and your fingers. Practice a little but practice often. Three twenty minute sessions will deliver a greater value than one continuous hour. That is particularly the case in the beginning of your guitar playing career.
Don’t let yourself be downhearted by this short lived question of hand and wrist pain learning to play guitar. It will pass with practice and muscle familiarity as you play more and more.
Following a really professional course of instruction such as that marketed by Legacy Learning Systems and looked at in detail in our Learn & Master Guitar review will benefit anyone worried about hand and wrist pain learning to play guitar. The help and advice given by the award winning guitar teacher Steve Krenz who wrote and hosted the course is invaluable for anyone at any level wishing to learn from scratch or improve their existing guitar skills. Find out more about Steve Krenz at our Steve Krenz review page.
Categories: Guitar
