Need some advice: hands hurt while playing

[mentoneman]

visit a vitamin shop and buy glucosamine/msm/chodroitin multi pills
i eat a chewable a day for on the go ease and its awesome for joint stiffness in my hands/back/neck

my friend was a touring classical guitarist and music conservatory professor and msm helped him tremendously
pound water too

 

[TroubledWine]

Here is a post from the website about primal living, and diet about arthritis. http://www.marksdailyapple.com/arthriti ... z1mw4HYPz6 Check it out. It works for me, and my wife.

Paleo diet high five!

Started it 10 months ago. Have lost 70 lbs and do nothing more than walk for exercise. Am about to be able to fit in stage clothes I last wore in a band when I was 17 (I'm 43)! It's also helped all sorts of aging aches and pains and slowed hair greying.

 

[GuitarGuyLP]

Here is a post from the website about primal living, and diet about arthritis. http://www.marksdailyapple.com/arthriti ... z1mw4HYPz6 Check it out. It works for me, and my wife.

Paleo diet high five!

Started it 10 months ago. Have lost 70 lbs and do nothing more than walk for exercise. Am about to be able to fit in stage clothes I last wore in a band when I was 17 (I'm 43)! It's also helped all sorts of aging aches and pains and slowed hair greying.

Congrats on the weight lost!!!!! That is awesome!!!!!

I have read a good bit of Paleo diet info as well. I think that in its original form it misses the importance of some fats. If you read about coconut oil for instance paleo info sources say it is saturated, but for some reason not bad for you. Primal says it is one of the best cooking oils, and your body stores energy in saturated fat form. That fact alone doesn't mean a fat is bad for you. The best part about coconut oil is that unlike vegetable oils it does not start to go rancid when you heat it up. That is all I use for cooking with.

I just finished getting rid of a bunch of clothes that are now way too big. I still have about 5-10 lbs I could loose, but the weather is cold, and windy so I haven't been walking as much as I should, but once it starts to warm up I will be walking, and adding sprints, and occasional lifting to get down to about 170lbs.

 

[threadkiller]

Stop jacking off so much

 

[tripstan]

Deit and streching are HUGE. Vitamins and copious amounts of water are key too. But if you already have pain I have a new (to me at least) strech and a hot/cold treatment I got form my sister in law who is a physical therapist.

Strech: Straighten your arm out in front of you and fold your thumb into your palm with the opposite hand. With opposite hand pull up (on fingers) until you feel discomfort. If it's painful BACK OFF, streching should hurt but at the same rate it's not comfortable either. Do both Extension (pull up) and Flexion (pulling down).

Hot/Cold: You will need a double sided sink or two bowls large enough to submerge your forearm. Fill one with water and ice and the other with the warmest water you can handle without being burn. Start with icebath. Place forearm into icebath for 5 mins or more if you can handle it. Then remove and I think you let it warm up a lil bit (min. or so) then submerge same wrist/forearm into hot water for 10 mins or so. I'm not entirerly sure about the time increments so if anyone else has knowledge or history with hot/cold treatment please chime in. Both of these help my pain and range of motion.

The best thing you can do is to take care fo yourself make don't let it become an issue. Guitarist forget the amount of strain they can put on there body. The last year in music school I started to get pain in both wrists. My instructor asked if I strech and do wrist exercised, I said no and I got the dirt look then with has hands as a mega-phone said "DON'T FUCK AROUND WITH YOUR WRISTS, deal with the problem ASAP". Even if the pain goes away the problem could still present. Exercise/Streching and Deit are a must if you want to have a long life of guitar playing.

 

[jcj]

Lots of good info.

I'll just add one thing that hasn't been mentioned. Neck size. Many of us over at the LP forum will only play larger necks, as it allows us to play not only pain free (or with reduced pain), it allows us to play much longer.

I've had this conversation with many others when my hand started to hurt. We all agreed that a larger neck makes your hand open up, causing less tension on the muscles and joints. I can tell you that after playing thin necks most of my life trouble free, my hand really started to ache when I hit my 40's. Picked up a '58 LP Reissue with a large neck a few years back.... and now have NO PAIN AT ALL (even when playing 3 sets).

Might not work for you, but you might want to try a larger neck guitar the next time you're in a music store. Good Luck

Yep...forgot that part...I'm a big neck only guy, myself...much more comfortable, fo me...helped a buch!

 

[Anonymous]

My left hand dexterity has been decaying slowly for 10 years now. Most days now there is a tightness across the top of my hand and my fingers just won't move right on the guitar and it is painful to play. No Dr. I have been to has been able to give me any reason for this, except, that they say it might be carpal tunnel, which I was tested for and don't have, or that it is scar tissue from a surgery I had to remove a ganglion cyst on my wrist in '85. I had to have that surgery, because the cyst got so big that I could not bend my wrist at all, which made guitar playing impossible. I think the problem is the old cyst surgery, but no one can tell me anything that can be done to fix the problem. The thing that sucks is that it gets worse every year. It seems to come and go with longer and longer cycles where I can't play very well or without pain. Then one day randomly, I pick up the guitar and I can rip no problem with no pain. Then it comes back... Very frustrating...

And yes, I warm up slowly, soak my hands in warm water, etc, etc, etc... During the cycles when there is tension in my hand and I can't play very well or without pain, it does nothing. During the cycles when everything feels loose and I can play, I still do the warm up, etc, but truthfully it isn't necessary then...

Sucks hard, but what can ya do... If I hadn't had the surgery in '85, I wouldn't have been able to play in the band I was in, which was the most important thing in my life at the time...

Can't help the OP, just venting...

Steve

 

[stephen sawall]

visit a vitamin shop and buy glucosamine/msm/chodroitin multi pills
i eat a chewable a day for on the go ease and its awesome for joint stiffness in my hands/back/neck

my friend was a touring classical guitarist and music conservatory professor and msm helped him tremendously
pound water too

I do this also ...

I remember reading in the 70's if you play guitar it is only a matter of time till you have hand problems .... By the number of us that have had problems I believe it is true. Lets face it there is nothing natural about the shape of a F chord...

 

[Enjolras56]

PM sent

 

[Chris6870]

Where's all the guys that say 9's are for pussy's?

I have tendinitis in my elbow of my picking hand that flairs up when I overdue it. It feels like a needle in my elbow. I have also been starting to get pain in my knuckles and my shoulder gets fatigued pretty quick. I just try to take a few days off from playing totally here and there.

 

[garbagetruckdriver]

I see many recommendations for Glucosamine/MSM (we all read Tim Ferris' 4 hour body then? )

I'm going to agree - for the short term. I used to train with some Pro IFBB Body Builders (for some reason they are all attracted to training in Thailand - might be the pharmaceuticals we have here?), so I have experienced some pretty extreme joint pain, inflammation an carpal tunnel syndrome before - and then beat it with dietary changes.

Screw anti inflammatory drugs - they will just give you GERD and a pile of other gastric problems that will make your life worse. Nurofen is never the answer.

Long term - more Omega 3 fatty acids! I could also say pop a couple of fish oil tablets at every meal (I certainly have done that for years) but really, this all comes down to the BALANCE of fats in your diet. Every cell in your body is made up of a phospholipid cell wall. (Lipids = fats). So the fat you eat is broken down and used as one of the most fundamental building blocks in your body. If you eat a diet high in Omega 9s, your cell walls will be more prone to inflammation as they are less porous. If you eat a more balanced diet with more Omega3s, your cells are more porous and the lymphatic system is able to flush toxins away more easily, in otherwords, less prone to inflammation and pain (also why people recommend lots of water...). Every cell in your body dies within 3 months so a change in diet like this will take months to show results - but it beats the hell out of popping expensive pills that rip your stomach up.

If your diet has fried foods, chips (french fries), donuts, potato chips, corn chips, Oreos, cookies, cakes etc. then you need to cut that crap, at least for a while to prove the point. Or maybe restrict yourself to Saturday only binges. On that note, if you haven't read Tim Ferris' 4 Hour Body, get a copy. He actually pulled research from a lot of very credible scientists and presents his findings in a simple format that everyone can follow.

 

[robertkoa]

In addition to the stretching, try Glucosamine....really helped me, and my hands hurt constantly.

There's products with Glucosamine,MSM,and a few other things called Joint Matrix and IF you take this with either Aspirin or Naproxen Sodium it really lowers joint inflammation.

Another thing is play with eyes closed as an exercise and feel the lines of force flowing through your muscles and joints to the guitar, relax as much as possible while doing this and let any pain or discomfort flow as you play with less and less force instead of more and more, reverse the cycle of stress, physical and mental.

Then play normal and have fun.

Do the exercise a few times a day, it can help you play with less force, more efficiently and with less strain.

 

[shreddr69]

My opinion is DON'T DO SURGERY!! Chiropractic helps, diet helps but what REALLY helped me was pressure point therapy on my fore arms. You can find some terribly painful points. Find them and basically press on them repeatedly until the pain/ numbness subside. I've hit points near my elbow that radiate down to my finger tips and some times it HURTS but keep going and you will see amazing results. Massage is a wonderful thing too. Do some research because you can hurt your self but I highly recommend these techniques because they have worked for me. I remember the first time a chiropractor showed me this technique it damn near brought me to tears but worth it man, worth it.... Good luck!

 

[shreddr69]

Also stretch WITH the guitar. John Petrucci rock discipline video has some good ones and so does Rusty Cooleys legato workout video (I forget the name) but that way you play and stretch. And proper playing technique, relaxation, etc. helps a lot too. You probably have some great carpel tunnel stretches too. Use em', they work but you gotta hold them for about 15-45 second each. Take care!

 

[FUZZboat]

F*ck Surgery you cant undo a botched surgery

I had (key word: had) wrist problems as I got older - this routine
cured it (fact of life: weakness = pain/discomfort & the stronger you get the less pain/discomfort you'll have)

1. got this

don't do quick squeezes - squeeze it and hold it (10 - 20 seconds)
and just keep working up your endurance every day (ie till you can hold it easily for 60+ seconds)

2. for warm ups there nothing better than gettining a 4 string bass and practice your minor penatonic scales on it for roughly 30-45 minutes a day.


I'm totally serious - you'll find playing a bass prior to playing guitar
is akin to "running with leg weights on and then taking the weighs off
and running" if you ever experienced that you know what I mean


I also use heavy dumbells to stretch my wrists and increase my gripping strength - its true what they say "use it or lose it"

when you 1st start you may experience a few jabs of pain now and then but after 2 weeks you should notice significant improvement

hope it helps

btw I'm with the others on looking at a possible Potassium deficiency

and also looking at the possibilty that your guitar neck maybe causing it well