finger problems..

[soulforged the secon]

well my problem is that after playing guitar for quite a while my fingers(of the left hand) start to hurt... some friends of mine felt the same pain and now they have serious problems with their hands and make physiotherapies...
is there a method,an exercise or something that you do before or while playing in order to protect your fingers from that...


thanx....

[MetalAngel]

A very simple exercise to avoid that is to do "air piano". That means that you have to drum your fingers on a table...each finger...regularly and doing it slowly at the beginning then faster and faster...

[Twilight Legionnaire]

My fingers don't usually hurt, but my wrist tends to.

I always warm up before playing guitar (mostly because I always play at least one/two hours in a row). First, I rotate my wrists, and gently pull them back and forth for a few seconds at a time. Then, I exercise my fingers as if I was going to play basketball or tennis or something. Another thing I like to do is also massaging the lower areas of my arm, my wrist, and my hand. It helps relax

Hope that helped.

[NeonVomit]

Make sure you have a good technique. If you bend your wrist too much when playing (main cause is having your strap really really low like those retards on MTV ) then your tendons which operate your fingers will not be able to function comfortably. Pure phisiognomy. Have the strap the length that is comfortable for you. Plus, dont over-stretch your fingers on the frets.

[Jaakko]

In his "Guitar Discipline" video John Petrucci shows some basic stuff for that warming up shit. Just what Twilight Legionnaire said actually, nothing special. A good idea is to do this kind of stuff all the time when you have nothing to do with your hands, gentle massage and stretching.

I've had some serious problems too, mostly with my little finger tendons in the wrist when pushed my stretch limits daily. Being skinny and kinda weak with my hands and arms (and not too long fingers), I took another approach just a while ago, started building my arms and wrists with handweights, hoping that would eventually make me a bit more "precise" and relaxed when playing physically demanding stuff, plus, it will add stability to my picking hand. I hope. Basically, I do these "wrist/finger rolls" whatever they're called and try to work out some sort of thumb squeeze stuff. Generally, multidimensional strenght can never hurt unless you build yourself so big you can't move anymore

[soulforged the secon]

thanx guys...

[stratoplayer]

i actually do the airpiano, when hearing music or what not (strato and sonata mostly of course :headbang:), so when i do get to play my fingers are warmed up

[Solitude_Within]

well if its you fingers and wrist that hurt id advise streching and that air piano thing. But when ever you feel pain id advise to stop playing or you could really damage your hand.

[cliff]

I think the other guys here gave some good tips.

Doing some simple exercices before playing (like scales) is a good thing.
I had those finger&wrist problems a couple of time. My best advice when it happens, is that, as soon as it start to hurt, STOP playing, at least for a couple of days until it doesn't hurt anymore.

The way you play can lead to problems like that. I guess guitar solos can make huge damage.

Another thing : maybe I'm wrong, but I feel that it's useless to pratice a too long time in a row, like 3 or 4 hours! One hour or one hour and a half is enough, as long as you really focuse on your practicing. You also learn a lot when you don't practice, for example thinking of new technics and stuffs. And if you practice too much, you just act like a machine, repeating same moves, same ideas, some riffs almost all the time.

[NeonVomit]

1.5 hours of focused practising (modes scales patterns picking etc.) is infinately better than 4 hours of unfocused practising.

[Jaakko]

Of course might be a good idea to have these shortcuts to do pretty insane sounding stuff with the least possible effort. So if some day it starts to hurt, you don't have to stop playing, just do some fancy tapping or fuck around with effects. So many things you can do without hurting yourself

[Aresius]

I recomend the petrucci video and those exercise

[Holy Light]

For warmups I would recommend Troy Stetina's Speed Mechanics for Heavy Metal Lead Guitar. He has some great warmup type exercises. You should also properly stretch your fingers after long practices.

[StratoFactor]

When I play my wrists start to ache, it sucks. Also , my own bass (I curse that Harley Benton) rapes my fingers if I play too much. I have to find a healthy playing position or my arms will be like Orochimaru's! (Those who have watched Naruto know )