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Posted by: Praetorian Mar 2 2009, 02:28 AM

I have been doing some warmup exercises that help with stretches on my left hand...but lately, I have been having some pain in my left wrist. Especially when playing Muris' Alternate Picking Thirds lesson which I have been playing for a couple weeks now. What should I be doing to warm up my wrist?

Posted by: Emir Hot Mar 2 2009, 02:54 AM

Play slower and build up speed slowly. That's the best exercise for me

Posted by: Rated Htr Mar 2 2009, 03:00 AM

What emir said and, if the pian becomes constant or is to hard, rest or better yet, make sure to take some days off or see a doctor not to create any sort of problem.

Posted by: Ramiro Delforte Mar 2 2009, 03:08 AM

There are many many exercises to warm up and avoid hand injuries.
Close your fist (with your arm extended) and with your other hand take the fist against your body (be careful because normally the tendon of the index finger is shorter and you don't want to cause any damage).
Other is: also extend your arm but this time extend your fingers (with the palm up) and with the other hand pull your fingers slowly down.

Those two exercises are basic but there are many many more.

Posted by: Muris Varajic Mar 2 2009, 03:47 AM

Playing slower licks is probably best and most constructive warm up, yeah.
And if it suddenly starts hurting just take a small break,
turn wrist few times around and go again.

Posted by: David Wallimann Mar 2 2009, 01:47 PM

I asked my doc about this recently.
I feel pain too in my left wrist after a long day of working.
You can use Tylenol..

Posted by: steve25 Mar 2 2009, 03:03 PM

If you are experiencing pain in your wrist or arm while playing then stop what you are doing immediatly. The last thing you want to do is cause yourself some serious damage. There have been a few stories that people have injured themselves so badly they couldn't play guitar anymore. Playing fast for a warmup is not very effective. Slow and accurate is always the best way to get your hands and fingers moving

Posted by: Gerardo Siere Mar 2 2009, 05:55 PM

More important what ever excercise you are doing is to chek out that when placing the hand and doing nothing you found that no tension exist, and when you play you are not building any not really needed tension, you can make excercise movements wonderfully, but if the movements in the actual playing are bad cause....1=you have a non confortable position before playing, or tense your muscles before playing restricting your wrist before playing.
2=your wirst movemente is either to short (you are making an extramovement to stop the motion of your wrist which means you are making for and altenate motion 4 movements instead of 2), no matter what excercise you are doing you will have pains (certain amount of fatigue and tension due effort is ok, pains means you are doing something wrong).
On the other hand and even I donçt usualy do pick playing, the motion comes from the arm and there is a very little but very important movement with the wrist, which can be object of discution, but fixing the whole arm and moving onbly the wrist you will only get a lot of pains. Good luck.

Posted by: Gerardo Siere Mar 2 2009, 07:49 PM

SORRY is misread th topic title, I was talking about right hand, for left hand remember to leave it losse like a gear.

Posted by: sigma7 Mar 2 2009, 07:59 PM

you can also stretch your entire body and get the warm blood flowing it helps me for hours at a time, just keep stretching after every hour or so

you can bend your wrist back as a strecth... also, place you fintertips together like you are praying, then bring your hands down while keeping your pals together. once you start to feel the stretch, pull your hands up but try to bring the elbows together as you go up

also pull your fingers or crack them

Posted by: mattacuk Mar 2 2009, 10:24 PM

I used to suffer with pain in my left hand and wrist, I worked out that I did not spend enough time warming up. But just what is a warm up I hear you ask? Well the simple answer is, anything that is slow and prepares you for mega techo terror speed picking later on

I find some slow pentatonic improvisation is just as good as any warmup but you can choose whatever suits your practice routine at the time

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Mar 2 2009, 10:30 PM

As everybody said, when you start your session, it is best to focus on some slow licks for some 30 minutes, so you give time to the hand to warm up, before you start to use it more intensively. Also if you experience any pain, stop, take a break, massage the fingers a bit in gentle non-sharp movements, and just continue after hand is more relaxed.

Posted by: Jakub Luptovec Mar 3 2009, 01:33 PM

Also I can advice what John Petrucci said in his instructional DVD - all the time brush your hands with each other, do slow stretchings of fingers and you could also use this excercise:

E --------4-1-
B ----4-1-3-2-
G 4-1-3-2-2-3-
D 3-2-2-3-1-4-
A 2-3-1-4-----
E 1-4---------

Then just continue all around your neck. You can even do bigger stretches in this and do twists. Just be creative, carefull and completely realxed. For example:

E ----
B ----
G -9-9-5
D -8-7-7
A -7-8-8
E -5-5-9

Improvisation is also quite good for left hand warm up. I dont know about you, but my improvisations are much much much slower then my regular fast playing speed. It also obviously helps with theory/scalar knowdledge.

Just play open E and choose some E scale - say E major and play all over the neck. You can have it shown somewhere on your PC so you wont lose track... And just play with melodies. And from time to time, change the scale - but on a scale with a large difference. Say from E Ionan to E Phrygian dominant.

This way you will also get some more modal knowdledge and it will improve your ear skills as well

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Mar 3 2009, 07:16 PM

I may add to maybe check out gyroscope balls that drummers use for warming up wrists..Something along these lines but there are simpler ones available :

http://www.powerballs.com/?gclid=CMz--5Wvh5kCFQqF3godK1NEnQ

Cheers