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  1. #1

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    Hi,I have question to those fellow guitarist who exercise regularly at the gym. I started to exercise about year ago and so far haven't had any issues with my joints/fingers. At first I was bit worried that doing exercising regularly and doing moves where you put pressure on your fingers might have negative effect on finger dexterity, so for there has not been any problems. Well apart some shoulder upper hand issues, but those didn't affect my fingers.


    Have you guys & girls had any finger/dexterity issues after training regularly? If so, do you know what is causing it and what might be best ways to avoid those problems?

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  3. #2

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    No I don’t but then I neither practice nor work out excessively. Anyway, if gym training has a detrimental effect on your hands you should talk to your trainer. And that’s regardless of whether you are a guitarist or not.

  4. #3

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    If you get hurt you are doing something wrong. Exercise shouldn't harm your guitar playing.

  5. #4

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    Sorry, I was probably bit unclear with my question. I was asking from those who have experience of regularly exercising for several years, if there are common pitfalls to avoid or to be aware of. I would otherwise ask from my PT about these, but he is not guitarist and he does not have that kind of indepth knowledge and experience how one uses his hands when playing guitar and what kind of things affect finger dexterity etc.

  6. #5

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    IME exercise helps, it doesn't hurt. At least as long as you don't do things which could actually hurt you. My wife has been forcing me to the gym for several years, and as badly as I hate it, I have to admit that it's essential. At 75, my hands are pretty healthy, only occasional mild arthritis pain, which so far has not required any medication, just application of warm water now and then. I find that using cold water, then hot water, helps. Overuse of one's hands can be detrimental, but as long as it's within reason I think exercise is beneficial.

  7. #6

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    I did a lot of heavy lifting at the gym all through my 50’s. I never had any problems. In the end it was my knees that gave out, not my hands.


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  8. #7

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    The only time exercise got in the way was when I got reckless. Like when I lost form and decided to do one more deadlift. It was so sloppy that I injured my back and couldn’t do anything for a week.

    Don’t do stuff like that and you’ll be fine.

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by CosmoB83
    Hi,I have question to those fellow guitarist who exercise regularly at the gym. I started to exercise about year ago and so far haven't had any issues with my joints/fingers. At first I was bit worried that doing exercising regularly and doing moves where you put pressure on your fingers might have negative effect on finger dexterity, so for there has not been any problems. Well apart some shoulder upper hand issues, but those didn't affect my fingers.


    Have you guys & girls had any finger/dexterity issues after training regularly? If so, do you know what is causing it and what might be best ways to avoid those problems?
    Going to the gym is a good idea, the problem overdoing it. The best way to gym and keep fit is to do it a mean way.

  10. #9

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    The only time I have trouble is when I do house construction and maintenance that are intense with my hands. I was using a sledgehammer a while ago and my hands hurt afterward for a week or so. Not unexpected I guess.

  11. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by lammie200
    The only time I have trouble is when I do house construction and maintenance that are intense with my hands. I was using a sledgehammer a while ago and my hands hurt afterward for a week or so. Not unexpected I guess.
    That type if jarring pounding is in part what lead to my CTS. Anytime I have to do that type stuff, it can really flare up CTS. If I am nailing something I make sure to let the hammer do all the work and on the down relax my grip a little. I would rather safely drop the hammer, then have my hands hurt.

  12. #11

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    I ride a road bike usually 30-60 miles daily. This put my hands on the bars ( drop bars) for sometimes 3-4 hours and so far no issues. I move them around a lot going from the drops to the hoods but sometimes after a ride my hands and fingers tingle a bit. It has not affected my guitar playing but if it did, I would figure a way to keep at it. I do know that many years ago I did some extended indoor riding on a special bike only for indoor riding. It has pretty much straight handlebars and I would lean the meat of my hand below the palms and above wrist. That actually did caused a problem and I had stop putting pressure on that part of the hand, causing my fingers to no work correct.

    I do at times notice if I am working on guitars in the shop and doing certain things that can at least affect my hands, so they require some rest. If I do a lot of sanding that can cause some fatigue. Healthy lifestyle is important to maintain good skills on the guitar and body in general. Sitting around playing the guitar all day and no exercise it probably the worst thing you can do. I don't care how good you want to become somethings require a price that is pretty high. I think about Wes and his wonderful talent and then read how he worked regular job, then gigged all over and who knows. Probably did not get much rest and decent food. I did see him smoking in a video too, he left us at the tender age of 43 or 44.

  13. #12

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    ^
    Quote Originally Posted by AllanAllen
    The only time exercise got in the way was when I got reckless. Like when I lost form and decided to do one more deadlift. It was so sloppy that I injured my back and couldn’t do anything for a week.

    Don’t do stuff like that and you’ll be fine.
    Quote Originally Posted by lammie200
    The only time I have trouble is when I do house construction and maintenance that are intense with my hands. I was using a sledgehammer a while ago and my hands hurt afterward for a week or so. Not unexpected I guess.
    All this. Just be aware of the effect the activity has on your hands and be careful. Hands are kind of fragile and take care to maintain if you regularly do strenuous activities. So don't use any grips that strain them or do unnecessarily grating things with them. Workman related stuff is probably more risky than working out. Just use good posture and be cognizant of what you're doing. I work out once or twice a day and haven't had any problems. I wear full fingered gloves and am careful. If you have pain anywhere in your body, stop and evaluate what is wrong, correct it, and rest if necessary.
    Last edited by Jimmy Smith; 02-07-2023 at 06:12 PM.

  14. #13

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    I've exercised all my life, but gave up full contact sports when guitar got serious.

    For musician friends, the main problem with weights has been that, over the years, everybody at some point will overdo it, or do something wrong and hurt themselves. So it is kind of dangerous, cause any hand issues will directly impact your playing. Whereas if jogging, swimming, etc, hands will be unaffected. It's doable, but not the best choice..

  15. #14

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    7 years ago I took up (Thai) boxing. I train 6 days a week--a total of 8-10hrs/week--sparring, running (7-11 mile runs with 1200+ ft elevation gain), hitting pads and heavy bags hard with my hands (and elbows, knees, and shins). At first I was worried it might affect my guitar playing, but my hands have only gotten stronger. If anything, I think the strength I've built has helped me play with better posture and control. I personally think it's contributed to the sensation I have of playing the guitar, which has allowed me to play more authoritatively with a heavier attack and fuller tone. There's no way that athleticism will be detrimental to your guitar playing unless you're doing something seriously wrong in your training.

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by Alter
    I've exercised all my life, but gave up full contact sports when guitar got serious.

    For musician friends, the main problem with weights has been that, over the years, everybody at some point will overdo it, or do something wrong and hurt themselves. So it is kind of dangerous, cause any hand issues will directly impact your playing. Whereas if jogging, swimming, etc, hands will be unaffected. It's doable, but not the best choice..
    Yeah gripping weights with gloves on isn't destructive at all. Just use common sense.

  17. #16

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    I had a snowblower that had left and right hand controls for the drive and auger. With your finger extended down over the front of the handle, you had to pull these little bars that were below and parallel to the handle up to it and hold them tight to the handle the whole time you used the machine. My fingers and the muscle that connects the thumb with the fingers were sore for two days after. Could barely hold anything. When a belt broke, rather than fixing it, I traded it in to the local repair guy for a different used one. Much better.

  18. #17

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    Don't do any sign painting.

  19. #18

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    Sustained grip (or any sustained contraction without rest) can cause low grade inflammation that can gradually lead to soft adhesions, but this is unlikely with standard weight/resistance training.

    Soft tissue injury increases with force, increase in time of contracture, decrease in amplitude of movement and decrease in rest intervals. Manual typing = nearly zero reports of carpal tunnel until the advent of electronic keyboards, as a classic example. Big vs small movement, frequent vs infrequent rest intervals, although more force involved with a manual typewriter (maybe not a perfect example.)

    If you have issues with wrist pain, you can always use pushup stands to keep your wrists in neutral, which is also a good forearm exercise. You can also do kettlebell balance training to give your wrists and forearms more resilience - walk around with a small kettlebell vertically inverted for 30 seconds to a minute to improve stability and grip strength.

    Keeping lower scapular stabilizers strong can reduce the likelihood of shoulder impingement, that could be a problem for lots of guitarists, by helping the humeral head operate from a more neutral position... basically, any exercise that pulls the shoulder blade back and down together - lat pulls, chinups, pullups, cable rows, back flys, cable crossovers, lawn mowers, bent over rows.

    And squats, lunges and deadlifts will help you keep your Twin Reverb in rotation!

    Exercise is one of the best investments you can make in your overall health and increases your longevity by a couple of years, statistically. So, you have more time to improve Go for it, but stay away from impact sports, speed bags, etc unless it's really important to you personally. Also don't recommend conga playing... makes your fingers fat and stupid!

  20. #19

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    There's a danger of injury when starting. Because muscles get stronger way faster than bones&joints. It happened to me couple of times.
    But fingers are quite safe. About losing dexterity... didn't notice. But wasn't very dexterous before.

  21. #20

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    I think largest risk for injury for fingers and small joints are being clumsy when loading weights and get your fingers stuck between, or other similar gym related non-training moments like that. There is also a larger risk for being sloppy and clumsy late in a workout when you're fatigued.

    I spend a lot of time lifting in the gym and have sometimes gotten a bit sore or stiff around the scapula and I've felt that when playing guitar but it is only a minor annoyance.
    I have on two or three occasions gotten cramps in my upper arm or forearm while playing guitar. Usually cramps can be prevented by rehydrating properly (as I understand it).

    One thing I've wondered about is whether CNS (central nervous system) fatigue from the physical training can affect how fast you can play musical instruments or if it somehow affects the ability to practise speed, accuracy, muscle memory and things like that.
    There was a test app for CNS fatigue which was simply tapping the phone with one finger as fast as you can and the claim was that a slower tap rate was meant to correlate with CNS fatigue? If that is the case it easy to ponder whether it will somehow affect the ability to play guitar or other instruments?
    But this is so far only my own speculations so there is nothing more behind this as far as I know. Maybe this has been researched?

    I focus on olympic style weightlifting. It can be rough on the skin of the hands. Calluses are common as well as ripping calluses. People do use razor blades or sand paper to maintain their calluses (I've only used sand paper). Tape around fingers are used to reduce friction and using lifting straps can also be kinder to the skin on the hands. But in general playing guitar is not affected.

  22. #21

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    Lots of good advice already, and I can confirm you can combine a musical activity even like playing violin with something dangerous like martial arts. I must add that my "break-through" in music occurred when I was recovering from having asked too much of my knees. I did avoid using my knuckles when working the punching bags though.

    One thing I don't think I've seen is to make sure you're doing sufficient warm-up, stretching and warm-down after effort, and train those muscles over the entire movement range of the limbs they control (at least for your upper body). "The gym" as a place stacked full with machines is a concept from after my time; I still associate such places with bodybuilding practice. That's not something I see as harmless for playing because it tends (tended?) to focus on producing bulging muscles - which are typically short muscles. The martial art I practiced required flexibility and fine control much like dancing and playing a musical instrument, and we've often seen the trouble people had who came from bodybuilding or sports creating similar musculature (certain styles of karate IIRC).

  23. #22

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    you can always play Metallica.

  24. #23
    I've been working out as long as I've been playing, which is well over 35 years. Yes, working out can impact your playing. Playing guitar can require physical energy, and working out before a demanding playing session can impact performance. It's not necessarily your fingers that are effected, but the whole body. Energy levels become depleted.

    If you practice a lot and develop RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury), working out can make it worse. I suffered this to the point I could not even put on a shirt. Using a computer didn't help either. Music has always been important to me so physical fitness plays second fiddle. They can of course compliment each other. Being fit and healthy makes for better performance in anything challenging. So, do your playing when you're bright and bushy tailed and leave going to the gym when you know you can relax and do nothing afterwards. In other words, don't work out before a gig.

  25. #24

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    I had a colleague once who was still active in his uni's (Leiden's) rowing association/club/thingy. He claimed that this was almost the perfect generalised workout, be it in an actual boat or in a trainer/simulator (possibly coupled with cycling I presume). No particular stress on any muscles as with e.g. running, and you train most them over most of their useful range (with the exception of finger/hand muscles I suppose). I've long had the idea to get me one of those machines; space constraints kept me from it and nowadays I'm also not entirely certain it's the best kind of exercise for my fingers.

    I do have a set of grip strength trainers btw, that I use semi regularly (mostly triggered when I feel I've been asking too much of my fingers).

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by RJVB
    I had a colleague once who was still active in his uni's (Leiden's) rowing association/club/thingy. He claimed that this was almost the perfect generalised workout, be it in an actual boat or in a trainer/simulator (possibly coupled with cycling I presume). No particular stress on any muscles as with e.g. running, and you train most them over most of their useful range (with the exception of finger/hand muscles I suppose). I've long had the idea to get me one of those machines; space constraints kept me from it and nowadays I'm also not entirely certain it's the best kind of exercise for my fingers.
    Rowing is mostly a cardiovascular exercise. It will make your muscles more oxygen efficient but it is rather limited as a strength exercise.
    It's an excellent exercise for people who like rowing and/or want to get good at rowing.

    Popular media is full of headlines with top lists of the "best exercises" and it is just stupid click bait journalism. They are just writing stuff that people want to read to get clicks and ad revenue.
    There are no objectively best/optimal/ultimate exercises.

    The benefits you could hypothetically get from an exercise is irrelevant for you if you never do said exercise (due to space contraints or which ever excuse you prefer). That's true for guitar exercises too!

    IMHO a "good exercise" is an exercise that makes you want to train and increases the probability that you'll develop a habit of training that fits with the rest of your life.
    You will not get any benefits from training if you don't train, and you're probably not going to train if you don't like training. Same can be said about guitar practise.

    For people like most of us, who have other careers and priorities, it is irrelevant what either fake experts (click bait journalists) or proper experts consider to be "best" or "optimal" training. What matters is what we can realistically fit in our lives, what feels meaningful to us, and what will make the journey worth it.