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GMC Forum _ PRACTICE ROOM _ Wrist Hurts

Posted by: vampire18 Feb 24 2009, 10:47 AM

recently i begun to accelerate my speed mostly my left hand speed. but now i have a problem that when i play fast or complicated things that little tendant or vein or what ever it is that connects the wrist to the hand just really pops up.
i feel really tense. it helps my speed but limits my movement and hurts after a short while.
any idea what can i do?

Posted by: kaznie_NL Feb 24 2009, 10:54 AM

I'm no expert, and I surely can't give tips on getting rid of it, but if possible, stop playing! Stop playing fast if that gives pain, if you keep playing you might end up having to restrain from playing for months.

Posted by: mattacuk Feb 24 2009, 11:04 AM

Speaking from experience I find alot of these problems occur because people start there practice session of straight away with speed picking and dont warm up first. Try some slow pentatonic improvisation for 20 mins or so before you start your speed picking

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Feb 24 2009, 12:47 PM

Warming up before practicing, and taking regular breaks during practice is something that you can possibly try. The injuries often happen when you do a lot of intense practicing without resting a bit, and focusing on relaxing your muscles as much as possible as you go up the speed.

Posted by: Pedja Simovic Feb 24 2009, 01:10 PM

Unless you play every day 5+ hours a day, jumping into fast passages and tempos will do more harm then good to your hands. You should spend beginning of every practice session warming up with metronome, doing repetitions of faster passages at slower tempo , to get your hands in sync towards what will happen later when you attempt to play things full speed. That way your first 30-45 minutes end up being very productive as warm up and serve as proper set up to anything technically challenging you might play. Take brates 10 to 15 minutes between hour of intense practice.
Hope that helps.

Posted by: Vasilije Vukmirovic Feb 24 2009, 05:44 PM

Your hand is tense while you're playing. You should either make conscious effort not to tense it, or you are simply playing to fast. There are Petrucci's warm up exercises, search them on tube, they really help.