Right arm/biceps get really tired while playing

[DVRP]

relaxing is not the key

you're simply using the wrong muscle

you need to start using only your wrist

voila pain is gone !

Uhm that is very flawed logic. Talk to any professional musician and they will tell you being relaxed is the most important thing. While your right about using his wrist; whats the point if its not relaxed! Being relaxed is the key here!

 

[Kemono]

All I am saying is he study his body.

If that's all you wanted to say, then sure, that's great advice. Makes sense to analyze the situation to learn what movement or position is causing the pain.

But that advice doesn't invalidate what others wrote, per se, so doesn't support the proposal to ignore everyone else.

 

[Slavocracy]

Oh, heres something that might help you guys understand a bit more what i mean. If I havent lost you already anyway, lol.

when I dig my elbow into my side, and attempt to play guitar like that .. while it feels incredibly awkward, my shoulder feels MUCH more relaxed. I don't get it. -_-

 

[gilsontsang]

1) Play more

2) I noticed playing while standing helps relieve my arm a lot, probably because it's not all scrunched together like sitting down.

 

[holland1945]

Well I know anatomy and kinesiology. You do need to develop the muscles you are using gradually. Also proper nutrition is something almost everyone overlooks. Muscle pain is caused by lactic acid build up. Cramps are caused by lack of hydration and or potassium. There are supplement you can take to reduce the amount of lactic acid in your body. Though a more developed muscle will prolong the production of lactic acid. Complex carbs, taurine, potassium, and plenty of water are going to be very important for your muscles to be worked in this manner for extended periods of time. Moving your wrist is contracting your brachioradialis and bicep brachial. If you are going to town or playing tight controlled rhythms, they are being used. So my advice would be to build up to it every day. It took me a while to get to the fast stuff and my wrists and arms are healthy aside from my left elbow, and that isn't a guitar related injury. So best of luck to you. Hope this helps.

 

[that short guy]

Perhaps you're using too much of your actual arm when playing. If you're constantly flexing your biceps/triceps/forearm while playing, they will definitely get tired and you will hurt after a while.

A lot of fluidity and comfort comes from playing more with your wrist, and I would advise that you see if you could incorporate more of that into your playing. A palm mute should be more of a "flick" motion with your wrist rather than an entire arm movement. Also, if you notice that you tense up your entire arm when you are alternate picking really fast, try to relax and play more with your wrist.

You should use your arm more for stability, positioning, and anchoring rather than for picking.

Also, perhaps you should try raising your guitar...if you have it too low, you can really limit the motion of your picking hand, thus possibly straining your entire arm.

Hope this helps yo

^^^ this guy just told you everything you need to know. you should use your wrist you'll be able to pick faster, longer and more accurately. It just takes time to learn the technique. but its kinda like learning to write solo's do you want to force it and when people hear it be like "eh he tried" or do you want to take the time and learn it and have people go "that guy knows wtf he's doing".

 

[Kahless]

Well, too bad I play guitar as well and you're ignorant of your own body.
All I am saying is he study his body. Trust me, when you've played about 5-8 hours a day for 11 years, and you teach percussion, guitar, and piano...I think I would know how someone's arms and wrists work. Enjoy.

GSingleton, I think turbo may have been looking at your statement "do not listen to these people" as though you were snubbing everyones advice other than your own.. perhaps you were meaning that the topic started should not simply leave it at the advice in this topic but rather do further and continuous research, and did not intend that interpretation; If this is just a misunderstanding then you guys don't have to make any further claims against each other, right?

For the topic creator;
Something I started to do around the same period of my playing, for the same reason, was to independently train individual muscles or units of the arm to perform their associated actions for the picking motion (and later all picking motions, started off with just ups and downs then moving through all combinations).
If you try and play, straight off the bat, you are using several muscles, but you can only control so many consciously in a relaxed manner while you are teaching them new physical tasks - Some people already have various higher levels of control when using certain parts of their arm in certain ways, based on their use of their hands and arms throughout their life - So they may be lucky enough to just play and it works. However, for learning new motions, while concentrating on certain areas of your arm in use, others can be forgotten about, and are used rather than carefully built up, like throwing a weight up and down rather than carefully lifting it up and slowly lowering it down.
To fix this problem I started playing very slowly with just one part of the arm moving at a time, in order to build it up until it was strong enough to not require any concious monitoring to move in a relaxed manner. Starting off with the shoulder (this requires some odd picking, and is completely weird at first, but then later the tiniest of shoulder movements grace themselves into your playing and keep you completely relaxed), then just the elbow joint, then the wrist side to side, then the wrist up and down, then the fingers and thumb, e.g. circle picking in different directions, or at different angles. This has to be done quite extensively for each component, but it can all be done in less than a month for someone who even only gets an hour a day in. This can also reduce the amount of effort needed in anchoring hands and arms while picking.
I would suppose that doing this creates relaxation by training your mind to have sufficient muscle memory for each components usage, avoiding a component being neglected while focus is elsewhere - but i don't know enough about the brain and physiology to make such a claim!

The same thing is essential with the left hand and arm - moving the shoulder and elbow around on their own should be done by everyone from the start not just so that we all become used to moving our left hand around, rotating into different chord shapes, but also to prevent us from stressing up the left arm, elbowing the ribs etc.