Hey there musicians. Hope you had a great holiday season (pandemic aside of course) and that you are ready to go for 2021. If you haven’t been moving your body regularly, here’s your weekly reminder that maintaining your body is at least as important as maintaining your instrument, and a few routines to try.
This week’s musician specific movements focus on improving nagging pain between the shoulder blades, warming-up and hip flexor stretching.
Remember, reading about exercises and thinking about doing them is better than nothing, but the real purpose of all of this is to take some action. If you’re not ready to do everything on the list, that’s ok, but try to pick something and get moving. Your body will thank you.
6 Exercises to Help That Nagging Pain Between Your Shoulder Blade and Spine.
Pain between the shoulder blade and spine is very common in musicians, and in some cases all the foam rolling and tennis ball massage in the world won’t make it go away. Here’s a great routine that combines upper back mobility, neck strength and shoulder blade strength that will be beneficial even if you don’t have pain. Watch the videos then give them a try.
- Upper Thoracic Cat-Camel: 10 times, nice and slow. Remember to keep breathing.
- Sidelying Sweep with Neck Rotation: 5 per side. This is one of my personal favorites!
- Half Kneeling Rotation: 5 per side. Another great movement to keep that upper back moving.
- Chin Tuck with Head Lift: 10 times with a pause at the top. Great for some very important postural neck muscles.
- Quadruped Rockback: 10 times with a pause.
- Serratus Wall Roll: 10 times slow. If you don’t have a foam roller, just put your forearms on the wall and slide up.
- Change your posture often and try some microbreaks.
Pain Here? Do This | Caleb Burgess, PT, DPT
Sponsor: Rehab Science Digital Rehab Programs
If you need more help than a free newsletter can provide, consider checking out Rehab Science. They offer affordable ($15) digital rehab programs for the elbow, shoulder, neck, hand, low back, and others. They can even help you find a PT in your area. (Affiliate: If you buy through these links, I get a small portion of the sale at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the Musician’s Maintenance mission!)
A Simple Pre-Practice Warm-up
Warming up before playing is one of the fundamentals of keeping yourself healthy. There’s many ways to this this (I’ve even put together a warm-up that takes less than 5 min), and here’s another great option that even incorporates a few movement for the legs and feet. Watch the videos and give them a try before your next practice session.
- Shoulder rolls: 5 forward, 5 back.
- Ankle circles: 5 per direction on each side.
- Heel raises: 10 times.
- Waist twisting: 10 per direction.
- Internal and external rotation of arm: 5 times up and down while doing the rotations.
- Single arm circles: 5 per side forward. 5 per side back.
- Double arm circles: 5 forward, 5 back.
- Breathing with hands on ribs: A few nice slow breaths to connect to the movement.
Movements for the beginning of a lesson practice session | Kayleigh Miller
4 Stretches for Your Hip Flexors
Despite the fact that most musicians injuries happen in the neck, shoulder, arm, wrist, hand and fingers, it’s still important to take care of other areas of your body. The muscles on the front of the hip (hip flexors) are a common area of tightness, and taking the breaks off there can help keep your low back healthy as well. Here’s four nice stretches to try. Watch the videos and try the hip opening routine below.
- Runners lunge: 20-30 seconds per side. Make sure you keep a relaxed breathing pattern as you stretch.
- Modified cat-camel hip opener: 5 sec hold, 5 times. Make sure you feel a stretch in the front of your thigh, not a pinch or pain in the low back. Squeezing your butt muscles and tightening your abs can help (just make sure you keep breathing!) If you can’t move in a way to keep pain out of the low back, then skip this one.
- Foot on bench/couch lunge: 30 sec per side. My slight modification here would be to keep your butt as close to your heel as possible and try to get your body upright to increase the stretch (rather than lunging forward and moving the butt away from the heel as shown in the video). Similar to above, you should only feel a stretch, not low back pain.
- Standing deep frog stretch: Up to 30 sec at the bottom keeping relaxed breathing. Keep your chest as upright as possible and heels down. If you find this position hard, you can also hold on to both door knobs of an open door for more support. It’s not technically a hip flexor stretch, but it is a great hip stretch.
4 Stretches for Your Hip Flexors | Anna Stevens, M.Ost
Sharing!
If you enjoy these newsletters, please consider forwarding this email to a friend, colleague, teacher or classmate. They can also sign up here. Thanks!