No?
Didn’t think so.
So stop with the ridiculous hand stretching exercises
I understand that muscles and tendons need to be warmed up but come on, you don’t need to be massaging your biceps and stretching your pecs.
At some point I just started laughing? Then again, John is becoming more pec-minded these days.
Dream Theater guitarist dreams of protein
Okay I know he’s an incredibly skilled guitarist, however I feel compelled to argue against excessive stretching and warm-up exercises. I think his stretches exemplify more of his own methodical Berklee nature.
Why do people stretch?
The reason guitarists do a warmup stretch on their hands before playing is to reduce injuries and increase performance. What kind of stretching do you mostly see? It’s pulling fingers and wrists back and holding it for a few seconds. Right…this doesn’t prevent injury or increase performance. There are studies to support it, and it has to do with static versus dynamic stretching.
Static vs dynamic
Static stretching are techniques to stretch muscles when the body is at rest. You probably did these kinds of stretches in PE – bend down, touch your toes, and hold. For guitarists these are the kinds of stretches where you see them pulling at fingers, wrists, and sometimes their triceps. This kind of stretching is best for “cooling down” after a workout or guitar practice session. However for a pre-practice warmup, static stretching doesn’t actually prevent injuries and decreases performance.
Dynamic stretching are techniques to stretch muscles within form and motion while not pushing the limits of the muscle’s range too far. In athletics this would be things like forward kicks, lunges, and prisoner squats. For guitarists this means finger exercises on the guitar itself. These can be a stretchy scale or difficult chords that require a little more reach, and starting slow while working up to a faster speed. This is the best stretch method for warmups.
There is ONE static stretching routine that is doctor researched/recommended as a warmup and it’s to prevent Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
Ouch! Carpal tunnel!
This is what a hand looks like after surgery for carpal tunnel.
Besides warming up to play this should be the main reason you stretch. My main day job has me typing all day so it’s something that’s even more important for me. I think these are some great easy exercises to prevent carpal tunnel.
DO NOT TAKE YOUR HANDS’ HEALTH FOR GRANTED!
Severe carpal tunnel is very painful and can only be corrected by surgery.
www.esquire.com
Mike Einziger, the guitarist for Incubus, had to undergo surgery for carpal tunnel and at his level of career that can be very devastating. I also have a friend with severe carpal tunnel and it’s too painful for her to lift a milk jug!
Warm up musically
So the message is clear: Use scales, chords, melodies, and the like to warm-up. If John has been bulking up off dead lifts, then any professional dead lifter would tell him that static stretching before dead lifting is bad.
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Just as an aside, that is NOT a picture of a post-op carpal tunnel surgery. I just had that surgery this week, the incision is a lot less invasive. 😉 That picture is from a Radical Flexor Synovectomy operation, and the case patient did not have carpal tunnel. Case file: http://www.eatonhand.com/img/img00066.htm
Google search has failed me haha! Thanks for that catch.
I’m sorry to hear that you had to have that surgery. Hopefully it wasn’t from too much guitar
Either way it’s good to avoid surgery of any kind. Best wishes for your recovery Valerie!
I had surgery also. I had endoscopic. The incision goes along an natural fold of skin and is millimeters. The surgery is not something that I would recommend to anyone. However, once you’re past the point of moderate symptoms–any and all amount of conservative approach lifestyle changes therapy is futile. Fact is in the case of the severe nerve compression I lost feeling in my hand. Now I can still play guitar because I was strong I could still bend I couldn’t feel the strings however. And I could’ve stayed that way but it would’ve been a matter of time before the hand begins to weaken, The thenar muscle begins to waste, since the blood supply is cut off to the muscle via the nerve–if you don’t have something done about it then you’re going to wind up with clumsy looking hands where atrophy has set in across your entire thumb Pad. no to begin playing guitar again I couldn’t play it like I used to play for like I wanted to play. I often would bend in Bend a lot I found myself having to go back to basics to relearn techniques that I mastered 20 years ago. I also got in good with the guitar teacher who is currently dealing with a mild case of carpal tunnel. he can go to conservative approach without having surgery which is great. he doesn’t know anybody that’s had surgery before specially a guitar player. he help me find conference with myself that give me the boost over the mental hurdle. he was sort of a wacko but a great guy very smart talking about how your brain will figure out new ways new pathways to learn how to achieve speed and technique… anyway he was great I recommend going back to the drawing board when you’re starting fresh because you’re not gonna be able to play the way you used to play. and the smaller incision is key but not cutting your hand open like that you still this is laser surgery. The whole key is to not get it to that terrible point of no return. there is life after surgery.
Prevention is always better than surgery for sure.