How to Prevent Pain and Injuries for Guitarists
Hand problems?
One of the most common complaints that I get from my adult students is that they are dealing with issues with their hands—injuries, arthritis, or perhaps just larger fingers!
It’s important to take care of your hands, wrists, shoulders, and elbows so that we can be comfortable playing for years to come.
Here’s some of my tips to help those who are struggling with pain when playing.
Make sure you have the correct size guitar and type of guitar. If you’re dealing with pain, a nylon string guitar would be a good option for your daily player. The nylon strings are gentler on the body than steel strings. If you’re a smaller person, choose a smaller sized guitar. A guitar that’s too large can cause a lot of pain from holding it in awkward positions.
Make sure the guitar is set up properly. The distance between the strings and the fretboard is what we call “action”. If the action is high, it causes more strain on the left hand. Take your guitar to a professional luthier and have them set up for playability.
Hold it correctly. When you are practicing, adapt a classical position to protect your body. Don’t worry about how it looks! You’re doing this for your health. You can also change positions frequently to make sure you’re not causing the same repetitive strain. Try breaking up sessions with a classical style position, then standing with a strap, then a folk position.
Don’t over do it early. So many of us want to get better fast and will increase the practice time in order to do that. But remember— underdeveloped muscles exercised to hard cases injuries. Work slowly through your material and allow your body time to get stronger and then recover.
Create a warm up routine. A warm up routine that includes stretching and finger exercises prepare your hands for the work they are about to do. Don’t skip it!
Do preventative and after care. You may find that warming your hands briefly before you play, and icing them afterwards helps relieve some pain after those long practice or jam sessions!
There are TONS of other things you can do to help prevent strain and injury as guitarists.
What’s something that you have done?