Essential Hand Stretches For Guitarists or Any Instrumentalist

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Recommends Chipsgoumerde · 2013-03 · Music: Practice & Theory Stack Exchange · on “What are good warm-up exercises for guitarists?”

In addition to the examples shown here, I would advise you to warmup without the guitar, stretching your hands, wrist and shoulders, but also and in my opinion more importantly, to warm DOWN after a big session of playing. I used to hurt myself when I was a beginner, as my left wrist would go from "inside" flexion during hours to a sudden outside flexion. The content of the exercise itself is not that important, and chromatisms are quite boring and frankly quasi-useless as a guitarist. What is important is to start slow, simple, with some are of your guitar playing which is mastered. It might be simple chords, it might be polyphonic tapping or tremolo, it depends on your personnal practice.

Recommends Rockin Cowboy · 2016-04 · Music: Practice & Theory Stack Exchange · on “Stretching for a guitar intro”

That is in fact a stretch but perhaps not impossible - even for small hands. One thing you must be sure you are doing is correctly positioning your fretting hand on the neck for that type progression involving a maximum stretch. You will probably find it easier to make the stretch if you position your thumb near the center of the back of the neck and shift it closer to the body of the guitar so that when you are playing the 7th fret on the A string your thumb is actually under the 8th or 9th fret. This will cause your hand to pivot or rotate in the direction of the distant 12th fret and make it easier to reach with your pinkie (yes you will have to use your pinkie). To help develop more flex

Recommends mkorman · 2021-09 · Music: Practice & Theory Stack Exchange · on “Can I injure my hands by typing or playing guitar too much?”

I share your pain (both literally and metaphorically). I'm also a software engineering and I also play the guitar. Only last month I injured my left hand and I had to take a break for 1 week, then play softly for 1-2 weeks until I regained my full strength. To answer your question: Can I injure my hands by typing or playing guitar too much? Yes, you can. It is within the realm of the possible. The way to minimize the chance of this happen is to improve your posture and technique. Perhaps the computing side of the answer falls outside of the remit of music.se; there's plenty of advice on the Internet: use an ergonomic chair, use ergonomic keyboard/mouse. When it comes to guitar, try to work o

Cites Rockin Cowboy · 2016-01 · Music: Practice & Theory Stack Exchange · on “How long to wait to play guitar again?”

What you are experiencing could be what I would call an overuse injury caused by repetitive stress to muscles, tendons and joints without adequate rest for recovery. Many athletes experience this type of injury and it is often exacerbated by using improper form. But even if using proper form, continual stress without adequate recovery time can lead to a repetitive stress/over use injury. I have seen these type injuries occur with experienced professional guitarist who book too many gigs in a short period of time and they end up with a similar issue. Even though they may have been playing regularly for many years without injury. It's when they over do it without adequate recovery time and res