Ray Troll designed T-shirt from the annual Salmon Festival and running events in Cordova, Alaska

Philosophy #20

Exercise. Playing the guitar for an hour or more a day is physically demanding. For one thing, it requires a certain amount of hand and finger strength and stamina. You’ve probably thought of that. But it’s demanding in other ways, too. You might not have given much thought to the way repeated finger and hand motions can lead to overuse injuries such as tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome. Meanwhile, sitting for a prolonged period of time with a guitar in your lap, perhaps craning your neck to see your hands on the strings, one leg elevated, your shoulders maintaining a certain position can lead to another set of problems which you might end up feeling in your back, hips, neck or shoulders. As a writer who has spent many, many hours at desks and keyboards over the years, I have experiences with some of these issues.

And according to what I’ve been reading, so do a lot of guitarists. As older learners, we’re probably especially susceptible to these overuse injuries. We want to avoid visits to our doctors and we really want to avoid being forced to take time off from the guitar, so let’s take a look at what can be done to stay healthy and keep playing.

1. Always warm up. Bring your hands and fingers into practice sessions gently. This is a good time to run through scales, checking each string and each note for tone. Move your hand up and down the fretboard with a shifting exercise. Make a finger stretching activity part of your warm-up routine for your left hand and throw in a finger-picking exercise for your right hand. Focus on technique, keep the pace slow, listen for tone and in a few minutes you should be ready to dive into your practice session.

2. At a minimum of every 30 minutes, get up and move around. I use these breaks to get in fairly decent micro-workouts. Here’s my routine:

• Five pushups, taking care to go all the way up and all the way down with good form. Pushups might be the single best exercise ever invented anyway, but they provide special benefits to guitarists. First, they do a good job stretching and strengthening forearm tendons and muscles. Second, they help maintain a strong core which by itself helps prevent posture-related neck, shoulder and back pain.
• I then go up and down a flight of stairs a couple of times. I take the steps two or three at a time. This flexes and strengthens my hips which become tight after sitting for long periods of time. It also strengthens my core. (In fact, throughout my life, I’ve always avoided elevators and escalators, instead taking stairs whenever I can. And I always take ’em two at a time.)
• Maintaining good posture (head up, shoulders back) and striving for nice, easy, long strides, I take a short brisk walk. Short? As little as a minute is enough to get blood circulating and restore skeletal alignment.
  
• Lastly, I stretch a little. I stretch my forearm tendons, I stretch my hamstrings, glutes and IT band, I raise my arms to shoulder height and pull back to offset the tendency to roll my shoulders forward when I play the guitar, and I’m ready to go for another half-hour.
• I rarely play for more than 30 minutes without taking one of these mini-workout breaks.
• Every hour, I take a longer break of at least 15 minutes. Often much longer.

3. Beyond those mini-workouts, I’m committed to an overall fitness regime. I usually work out five days a week. My routines include resistance training, aerobics and stretching. I pay particular attention to keeping my forearm muscles and tendons stretched and strong – because typing and fishing have taken a toll on those extensors. I also do most of my writing and photo editing at a stand-up work station; I spend enough time sitting with my guitar, and my back and hips appreciate the break.

In the world of running, trainers have a term for athletes over the age of 40 who don’t regularly cross-train (with resistance training and other non-running exercises) and who don’t stretch. That word is “injured.” I can’t speak about younger guitarists, but I strongly suspect that the same word, “Injured,” will apply to older people coming to the guitar for the first time, especially those of us who practice every day for an hour or more if we don’t take care of the new demands we are placing on our bodies.

So think of yourself as an athlete-musician. Cross train, stay healthy and play on!

By the way, if you have experience with avoiding or overcoming guitar-related injuries, I’d love to hear about them!