wrist pain help

[azoictaint7]

hey all, didnt really know where to post this but ive been playing 2 years now and i just started getting to a good comfortable point but about a month ago my wrist hurt really bad and now i havent played in a month because of it. Well... thats a lie, ive played a little but it hurts so i set her down. Could i have hurt my wrist because of too much arch in my wrist or making my practice regimen too much in too little time or something like that? I just dont know whats wrong and its really been getting to me because guitar is my love. Anyone else had something like this happen to them? thanks a lot

jeff

 

[WayneCustom7]

hey all, didnt really know where to post this but ive been playing 2 years now and i just started getting to a good comfortable point but about a month ago my wrist hurt really bad and now i havent played in a month because of it. Well... thats a lie, ive played a little but it hurts so i set her down. Could i have hurt my wrist because of too much arch in my wrist or making my practice regimen too much in too little time or something like that? I just dont know whats wrong and its really been getting to me because guitar is my love. Anyone else had something like this happen to them? thanks a lot

jeff

Well you came to the right place, these guys will help...they helped me, although it was my forearm that ached...seems I had lowered my strap and the result was a weird angle for my arm...however a wrist can be many things...and can be serious...I think by resting and investigating you're on the right track...good luck!

 

[Digital Black]

Are you straeching out before you begin? You should.

 

[Leon]

Are you straeching out before you begin? You should.

+9874350631247612378478912508761239481238947603

stretching is #1!

 

[Scott]

Are you using a laptop by any chance? I recently bought my laptop and using the scroll mouse thingy hurts my wrist after awhile.

 

[fatherbrennan]

When that happens its usually a sign that you are either playing too much (if thats possible ) or you tried a new exercise that makes you do a reach you arent used to doing or something similar. Ice the wrist a lot and make sure you dont play guitar AT ALL until its better. Sucks I know, but if you start playing again too soon you'll just keep your wrist from getting better, and yes, it can be quite serious if you let it go on for too long. Since yours started to hurt a month ago and it still isnt better, it sounds like its pretty bad. No need to worry though, put the guitar down completely for a couple more weeks at least, ice the wrist as often as possible, and if that doesnt work see a doctor about it. A cortozone shot isnt all that good for you, but if you just do it once it can really help the swelling in your wrist go away, consider that an option only if the ice and rest doesnt work though.

Also always remember, the human hands really werent meant to do things like play guitars and what not. So to get to the point of being a great guitarist, you have to be very careful along the way with your wrists especially. Nothing wrong with tons of practice but when things start to hurt definitly take it seriously. Eventually your hands and wrists will be so used to the guitar you wont have to worry about this much anymore, but that can take years.

 

[azoictaint7]

thanks for the input and im icing right now. Ive read some topics from some other sites on the subject of left hand positioning and im wondering is it harmful to keep your wrist bent most of the time? Ive read a lot of posts that say you can do every chord or most of them without bending your wrist but i just cant seem to work the chords that way with my thumb on the top of the guitar. I just cant keep my wrist straight all of the time. Is that normal because i have smaller hands than most, or do i have some serious work to do? ive also noticed with power chords in drop-d tuning its hard to keep my wrist straight. so really my largest question is how should I place my left hand to begin with? i know i have a lot of questions and i know i will have more so thank you so much for helping.

jeff

 

[fatherbrennan]

Having your wrist straightend out would probably be better, but the truth is most of us need to bend our wrists a lot to make certain reaches, especially on a 7 string. I have pretty long fingers and I have my wrist bent a lot when playing to reach certian areas. The main thing to watch out for is when you are doing a new exercise your hands arent used to. Sweep picking arpeggios is a common exercise that can cause injury, because often times arpeggios have long and/or awkward reaches. When you start something like that for the first time you have to take it easy at first, and remember that you can injure your wrist and not feel any pain right away, which means the only way to be safe is to take breaks often until you are really used to the exercise. To answer your question though, position your wrist so that long reaches are as easy and comfortable as possible. There are commonly accepted guidelines on how your wrist should look when playing guitar, but those cant be totally applied to the 7 string, its a different instrument to be sure. Do what feels the most comfortable and you should be fine. Ive had a small amount of wrist problems over the years, but never because my wrist was bent while playing, it was because I was doing 5 or 6 fret reaches without enough breaks or warm up.

 

[azoictaint7]

yeah im just getting into longer reaches like you were saying so that could have been what did me in. How often should i take breaks because i usually just want to keep playing so i do. What kind of warm up do you do?

 

[fatherbrennan]

Sounds like thats what did it then. If you are going to do reaches like that a good exercise is to stretch all your fingers out real far, then make a fist, then stretch them out, then make a fist, etc. for several minutes. Thats a good warm up. Also I play for a while on the diatonic scales (not doing any long reaches) before I really get into something new.

However a lot of recent research shows that stretching muscles before exercise DOES NOT help prevent injury. Stretching gives your muscles a greater range of movement over time, however stretching right before an exercise does nothing to help you prevent injury, if you push yourself too hard you risk injury, whether you stretched before or not. Therefor the best way to be able to pull of these reaches is to take a lot of breaks at first and do stretching exercises every day so that down the road you can do those reaches without injury. For now do that stretching exercise I just talked about every day, and then when you are ready to start playing again dont do any long reach exercise for more than like 5 minutes before taking a break. That break doesnt have to be putting down your guitar, you can take a "break" by playing something that isnt hard on your hands for a few minutes.

Im working on some arpeggios with really long reaches right now, and I hurt my wrist pretty bad a few weeks ago because I over did it. Now my routine is like this, I play the arpeggios for like 5 minutes, then stop and just fool around on some scales soloing for a few minutes (not doing any long reaches), then go back to the arpeggios again. I dont stop playing the guitar, however I am taking "breaks" from the strenuous exercise every 5 minutes or so. I figure in a couple weeks I'll be ready to play those arpeggios non-stop without much wrist trouble, but I learned my lesson for sure, my wrist hurt like hell for a while there.

 

[azoictaint7]

By stretching my fingers out as far as i can do you mean spreading them outwards or bending them backwards? Im just a little confused and i dont want to hurt myself anymore. Thanks

Jeff

 

[Leon]

By stretching my fingers out as far as i can do you mean spreading them outwards or bending them backwards? Im just a little confused and i dont want to hurt myself anymore. Thanks

Jeff

you can do both

just don't bend them to the point of pain. that's counterproductive.

what i do, is bend my hands back until it i can feel the tightness in my arm, then i hold it for about 40 seconds. then i bend them down for 40 seconds. then i bend my thumbs back, then i stretch my arms over my head, across my chest, then out like i'm flying, all for 40 seconds a piece. and since i tend to arch my back when i practice, i'll stretch my back as well.

if you're inclined to see this on video, you can get John Petrucci's Rock Discipline dvd. it's where i got my stretching / warm-up technique

 

[fatherbrennan]

you can do both

just don't bend them to the point of pain. that's counterproductive.

what i do, is bend my hands back until it i can feel the tightness in my arm, then i hold it for about 40 seconds. then i bend them down for 40 seconds. then i bend my thumbs back, then i stretch my arms over my head, across my chest, then out like i'm flying, all for 40 seconds a piece. and since i tend to arch my back when i practice, i'll stretch my back as well.

if you're inclined to see this on video, you can get John Petrucci's Rock Discipline dvd. it's where i got my stretching / warm-up technique

When I originally talked about the finger stretching I meant straight out, not bent back. But Leon is right, there are many ways and the ones he pointed out are good ideas. The bottom line at least in my opinion is you must take breaks when you are playing. Stretching the fingers is a great idea and you should do it, but the #1 thing to remember is dont overdo it anymore. Like you said, you were doing some long reach exercises and did it for hours. You just cant do that, not so quickly at least. Eventually you can do that with no problems, but build up to it.

 

[azoictaint7]

I just got back from my doctor and he said that it was a ligament that he knew about. He's a guitarist too and he gave me some stretches and said that i should stretch and then play slowly and progress if it was just mild and that i should just work through it unless it got too bad. i just want a second opinion so what do you guys think? thanks

Jeff

 

[Nik]

I've gotten massive tendonitis twice and overexhaused my finger muscles once in just my first year of playing guitar, but I've figured it out.

Every time before you practice, soak your hands for 2-3 min in warm water. Then do a LOT of warm-ups. The warm-ups I use, and probably the best I've ever seen, are the ones John Petrucci shows in his instructional DVD. Then you can play. And after you're done, soak your hands in COLD water for 2-3, maybe a bit more minutes. This feels really good.

Anyway, that works really well for me.

Oh, and I'd say trust your doctor

 

[fatherbrennan]

I've gotten massive tendonitis twice and overexhaused my finger muscles once in just my first year of playing guitar, but I've figured it out.

Every time before you practice, soak your hands for 2-3 min in warm water. Then do a LOT of warm-ups. The warm-ups I use, and probably the best I've ever seen, are the ones John Petrucci shows in his instructional DVD. Then you can play. And after you're done, soak your hands in COLD water for 2-3, maybe a bit more minutes. This feels really good.

Anyway, that works really well for me.

Oh, and I'd say trust your doctor

Yeah Id say trust your doctor, he ultimately should know more than we would. The only thing he said that concerns me is to just "play through it" unless it gets too bad. Something about that doesnt sound right to me. If your wrist hurts it probly means you are doing something wrong, either they way you are playing is incorrect or you just overdid it. Id be careful about playing through it, thats what can make it worse. Bottom line though is just take it easy and remember not to go overboard and Im sure you'll be fine.

 

[7 Dying Trees]

After really fucking up my hands (I couldn't even type properly for 2 weeks, and being a programmer at the time that was bad....) here's what I have to say:

DON'T PLAY UNTILL IT'S BETTER.

Also avoid typing, and if you do make sure your wrists or arms are resting on teh table etc so your poor arms don't take the full weight etc.

One day it will just get better, and after that yopu will really remember to stretch always

 

[bombershredder]

IF you're having problems with stretching with the left hand and you can't get some stretches down then, Go here.
www.rustycooley.com
go to his lessons page.
check out the last lick on the seven deadly sins column. The 4 note per string lick. That is ALL you need to do, check it out. and everything else will be clear if not i don't understand your problem.

 

[JJ Rodriguez]

Im working on some arpeggios with really long reaches right now, and I hurt my wrist pretty bad a few weeks ago because I over did it. Now my routine is like this, I play the arpeggios for like 5 minutes, then stop and just fool around on some scales soloing for a few minutes (not doing any long reaches), then go back to the arpeggios again. I dont stop playing the guitar, however I am taking "breaks" from the strenuous exercise every 5 minutes or so. I figure in a couple weeks I'll be ready to play those arpeggios non-stop without much wrist trouble, but I learned my lesson for sure, my wrist hurt like hell for a while there.

You could probably write a little tune for practice like that, something with some sweeps then some scale runs and more sweeping, just so you don't need to stop, and could also be handy for practicing switching between sweeps and alternate picking. I think I'm going to write something tonight to work on that, if I get anything that doesn't embarass me I'll post it

 

[Drew]

IF you're having problems with stretching with the left hand and you can't get some stretches down then, Go here.
www.rustycooley.com
go to his lessons page.
check out the last lick on the seven deadly sins column. The 4 note per string lick. That is ALL you need to do, check it out. and everything else will be clear if not i don't understand your problem.

Um, disregard that bit o' advice. If you're having wrist pain, trying to do the stretches in that "Wrath" lick is the LAST thing you want to do.

I can't believe I've missed this thread until now... I had a bout of tendonitis a number of years ago that prompted me to research this pretty seriously. I had originally intended to do a website about tendonitis for guitarists as there was really no guitar-specific information on the net at the time, but never got around to it. Instead, I just post stuff to message boards every now and then when someone asks.

Basically, the short answer is, if you feel pain, you're body's telling you that you're doing something wrong and you need to stop. In fact, I can't stress that strongly enough - your body is saying YOU NEED TO STOP. So the first thing I'm going to tell you is 1.) Put your guitar down for at least two weeks, preferrably a month, just to give your hands some time to recover. Whatever technique you lose in this period, if that's something you're concerned about, will come back in a few days. However, if you keep pushing through the pain, you risk doing long-term damage that could stop you from playing entirrely a few years down the road.

Now, you need to look into WHY you're feeling pain. You know your body is unhappy with something you're doing, so you need to sit down and figure out what exactly is causing problems. Here's some possibilities:

1.) Poor playing posture. As cool as you look with your guitar slung down a la Jimmy Page, this is just hell on your wrist. Look into ways to ease the angle your wrist has to bend at while plaing. For the time being, I'd recommend adjusting your strap so that your guitar is really no lower when you're standing than when you sit down and it's resting on your leg. Sure, you'll feel like a dork at first... But you're a dork who can still play. After 6 months or so, you can start dropping it carefully by an inch or two, but pay very careful attention to your wrist position, and don't go very low. As a reference, Joe Satriani slings his guitar as low as I would recommend, and if you notice, he keeps his guitar at a very sharp angle, with the headstock pointing up at a sharp angle, and much closer to vertical than horizontal. This reduces the angle your wrist has to be at to play, and is something else you should look into. A new strap, something with a sueded leather underside, might be a good idea here, to keep your neck from sliding towards the floor.

2.) Overdoing stretches on the fretboard. This is another possible problem - wide interval stretches sound cool and are a great tool for guitarists, but be VERY careful when you begin practicing these, allowing your hands plenty of time to get used to the movements. You're moving your hands in ways they're not used to, and just because your hands (and wrists) are used to the movements needed to play a guitar doesn't mean that you can jump right into this stuff without risking damage. Once again, this stuff is hard because your hands aren't used to it - build slowly, allowing yourself plenty of time to get used to wider stretches on the fretboard.

3.) Repetitive motions/marathon practice sessions Forget you ever heard of Steve Vai's 10-hour workout. I can't stress it enough, practicing a drill over and over again for long periods of time is absolute murder on your hands - they refer to Repetitive Stress Injuries (RSI) for a reason. If you're going to do long technique workouts, focus on keeping your entire body as loose as possible, and don't repeat a drill for any more than 15 minutes at a time. Take a 5 minute breather after every drill, stretch your hands out a bit, and then do something else that moves a different set of muscles and stresses your hands in different ways. Bodybuilders work in sets - you should too.

4.) Neck profile. Believe it or not, this makes a difference. My bout with RSI came after I bought a RG-520 with a Wizard neck and started practicing wide-interval sweep licks with my guitar hung too low. I showed a lick I came up with to a friend of mine, and then as we had a fairly competitive friendship, figured I'd better get good at it in case he got better than me at my own lick. A week later, wrist pain ensued. Thing was, though, even at the worst of it, I could still play my stratocaster without too much discomfort. As it turns out, this is common, and I found a few threads at the Taylor guitar forum about this. Bob Taylor had even posted and said they'd be looking into adding an optional thicker neck profile for guitarists who'd had problems with RSI, but I don't know if anything ever came of this.

5.) Warmup/cool down Stretching may have no long-term advantages here, but you're at less risk of damaging your muscles/tendons if you take a few minutes to get the blood flowing and limber up before trying anything difficult. Likewise with cooling down. You wouldn't try to run a 5k foot race without doing a few stretches because if you did you'd risk pulling a muscle, nor would you not cool down because you'd HURT the next morning (in my personal experience, you're going to hurt anyway if you're not uch of a runner, lol, but a cool down can help).

6.) Thumb position. There are two main thumb/wrist positions you see in guitarists - the "blues" thumb-over-the-neck position, and the "classical" thumb behind neck position. Of the two, the classical position offers the greatest stretching ability, but puts additional stress on your wrist. The blues position allows stronger bends and gives you a much more relaxed wrist position, but is more difficult to stretch from. What you want to do, then, is spend the majority of your playing time in the blues position, but modulate to the classical position whenever you need to do some stretchier stuff. Once aghain, Joe Satriani is the guy to watch - track down some live footage of him, and watch how he moves between the two, paying attention to the sorts of licks he's playing in each. It's worth noting that Satch has, to the best of my knowledge, never had any tendon problems, and that he has excellent wrist position - fairly low guitar, but at a sharp enough angle that his actual wrist angle is minimal, and very conscious use of both classical and blues positions.

Anyway, here's my short-term recommendations:

1.) Take a break for a couple weeks.
2.)adjust your strap height and re-evaluate your playing position to minimize your wrist movement
3.)stretch before/after playing.
4.) start taking ibprofin - aside from pain releif, this will reduce swelling, which could be causing additional complications (pinched nerves, etc). An ice pack after playing can help, too.
5.) break your practicing up into 10-15 minute chunks.
6.) pay attention to thumb position.

Hopefully some of this can help, but the most important thing to take from this is that it hurts because you're doing something wrong, and if you don't change, it'll only get worse.