What're some good tremolo picking techniques?

[XeoFLCL]

Well, I've been doing alot more tremolo picking/alternate picking style chug riffs, and after about 20 to 30 minutes, it sorta kills me. I'm learning alot more fear factory and thats one of the reasons. Do you guys have any techniques I can practice to make it less strainful on the hand? I'm doing all of it with the wrist but after time it still strains my hand a bit.

Maybe spending more time working out would help?

EDIT: Meant to say exercises.. sorry bout that topic title is a bit misleading..

 

[Dead but Dreaming]

This may or may not help, but I like to keep my hand as relaxed and rubbery as possible. My hands mainly become sore and tired from tensing up while I play, so tremolo picking is no big deal unless you're playing it tense. It took me some practice not to tense up when I try to speed up.

 

[Demeyes]

I think it's just a case of getting used to it. I used to throw on a metronome and go between galloping constantly and then after a minute or so switching to trem picking. Start slow and increase the speed in one sitting. I would do this until I hit a speed I found hard to keep my picking constant. Then I'd go down, chug away and switch back up to really test myself. Doing all this as an exercise takes a good few minutes and in the end you'll be really tired. Just do this regularly and you'll find your stamina will really build. I tried not to take rests for too long, so it really wears at your wrist.
You can mix the patterns up to get more variation and control. I would do variations of trem picking and gallops to make sure I could actually change what my wrist was doing.
Avoid tensing up at all. That is where you will find yourself getting very tired, sloppy and it's not that good for you.

That was my old training regime but I don't really do that anymore and I have found my picking is a bit slower than it used to be so I will start doing it again over christmas.

 

[hufschmid]

i have a guitar without any strings which i practise on all the time....

sounds very strange but when you actually can play the song without strings (proper position etc)... when you go back to strings things feel a lot easier currioussly.... (this is known as 'muscular memory')

and it does help a lot for both hands techniques

I been doing this for years now and it works...

 

[XeoFLCL]

Yeah, I've been practicing quick triplet/quadruplet riffs from fear factory the past 3 weeks and I've pretty much got it nailed. It's all in keeping the wrist relaxed I figured out. As for hufschmid's idea.. Thats actually pretty interesting, and I should try that.