Injuries, Stretching & Guitar !, How do we evolve a better way ? Options

[Ben Higgins]

One of the things that sucks the most has to be injuries that force us to take a break from the guitar, am I right ?

People sometimes find it hard to motivate themselves to practise but do you know what ? I think it's harder to stop yourself practising ! And this is something that becomes apparent when you're forced to lay off from the instrument for whatever reason. It could just be that you've been playing hard for a few days and everything feels a bit tired and achy. Overuse is usually a factor in why we have to take a break from playing. But sometimes it's something more serious like a strained tendon. Playing with cold hands that are not 'lubed up' and ready for action is asking for something to go wrong. If your bits and pieces are not warmed up then muscles don't contract and retract as efficiently as they should and it puts extra strain on tendons and ligaments.

That leads me on to something that usually gets touted as a 'warm up' - static stretching. I don't want to urinate on anyone's parade here because static stretching before exercise is like an old tradition but I think 2 key words here are old and tradition. How many old traditions have been replaced because they're outdated and discovered to be either of no use or detrimental ? Too many to think about so with that in mind, maybe its' time we embraced that it's not the best thing for us to do before we intend to exercise or play guitar.

Static stretching is where you stretch a muscle group and hold it for a period of time, without moving. We're all familiar with that, yeah ? The thing is, by stretching the muscle you're decreasing the neural performance or something and causing relaxation. Now, relaxation is something we want as guitar players but not at the expense of reduced physical performance. It's like taking an elastic band and stretching it until all the elasticity and tension has gone, then expecting the band to perform the same function. Explosive power is not the same. Reaction speed isn't the same. But please, my layman's understanding of this is no substitute for your own research so I urge you to go and check this stuff out yourself from a number of sources. Cross reference, read both sides of the argument, read people's personal experiences and decide for yourself. But do look at it.

The bottom line is that most institutions have moved on from the old days of static stretching before exercise as they've kept up to date with progress in that field. Of course, many martial arts schools or sports clubs may still do it but they're probably not run by people who keep up to date with progress. Static stretching still has its place but it's now recommended as a post exercise activity only.

So what should take the place of static stretching ? Dynamic stretching is the thing now. You're moving your body through a range of motions designed to wake up the muscle groups and get them working at a much reduced intensity to allow them to warm up and get the blood flow happening. Here's an explanation from wiki but again it's worth doing your own research about this:

Dynamic stretching works by the practitioner gently propelling their muscles towards their maximum range of motion. It is very important to note that the practitioner should not use jerky, forced movements to increase the range of motion beyond what is comfortable as it can easily cause injury. In general, the practitioner wants to move (stretch) the muscle in a similar way that they are going to move them in a workout. For example a martial arts practitioner who wants to stretch a hamstring for a kick may swing a straight leg forward to gradually increase the height they can obtain. Doing light kicks, with little explosive acceleration, while gradually increasing height, could also be considered a dynamic stretch. - Wikipedia

Obviously, most or all of the info will be dealing with sports related activities rather than the needs of a musician so we need to take the concepts and apply it to our own activities. Do I always practise what I preach ? Hell no ! But I try to do something like this:

If my hands are cold, stiff and slow to respond then my priority is heating them up and getting the blood flowing. This is hard to do in my opinion as any heat generated by rubbing the hands together or holding a cup of hot drink dissipates pretty quickly, so it takes a while to get the hand feeling warmer and looser. If my hands are warm enough then I'll pick up the guitar and just ease myself into it with some relaxed chord shapes, random noodling. But it's all done with very little pressure from the fingers. I go easy on anything that requires more muscular concentration like vibrato or bending. I just let the fingers find their way without pushing them or going for stretchy licks too quickly. In this way, this is as close to dynamic stretching as we can get. It's 'sports specific' if you will; it's using the fingers through a range of motion that is similar to, or identical to the intended activity. By using our bits and pieces at an unhurried, lower intensity we allow the hands to loosen and warm up naturally.

That's how I mainly do it, anyway. There's no real resource that I know of where we can get a load of ideas on guitar specific dynamic warm ups.. oh no, wait a minute. Yes there is - it's here. As players ourselves we're the ones who will be making these discoveries and testing them out for ourselves so it's our responsibility to gather and share this information so that good physical practises related to guitar playing can continue to evolve just as sports science does.

We are the ones who have to do it so let's share our experiences and thoughts about this. Aside from the process that I mentioned earlier, what other dynamic stretches or movements could help a guitar player prepare for a practise session ? It's not just fingers and hands involved in guitar playing either. What about your wrists, forearms, elbows, triceps, shoulders, neck muscles ? Whilst they all may not be involved in the execution of a technique, tightness or reduced mobility in those areas could affect the performance of the hands. The hands are basically the very tip of a larger tool. So what about warm ups to help those areas too ?

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