Hey there musicians. Here’s your weekly reminder to take a little time each day to take care of that body of yours. It’s way more valuable than your instrument and you can’t buy a new one if things go wrong.
This week’s musician specific movements focus on a hand and finger warm-up, moving your mid back, and making recovery a superpower.
As always, make sure you understand the newsletter exercise ground rules. Also, remember that reading about exercises and thinking about doing them is better than nothing, but nothing is actually going to change unless you 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!
A Hand and Finger Warm-Up
I’ve argued for warming up your body before playing, but one area that is not in the warm-up that I put together is getting those little hand and finger muscles moving. Here’s a nice sequence from Hannah Murray, DMA of The Active Violinist and Copsonore with some great movements from Timani (more on them below!) to prepare your fingers to play.
Watch the video here, then try the warm-up routine below. You can either start with the finger brushing as I have it below, or finish with it as it’s presented in the videos. I like the finger brushing at the start, because it wakes up the nervous system and can help you connect with the little muscles underneath that you are going to use for the rest of the movements.
- Finger Brush: 5 times through per side.
- The Tent: 10 per side.
- The Duckling: 10 per side.
- Bird Bath: 5 times through per side.
4 Timani Hand Warm-Ups I Use Before Playing | Active Violinist via Instagram
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If you are serious about taking care of your body, joining a community of like minded people, learning high quality, relevant information can be invaluable. Timani has created exactly this. A community for musicians, by a musician that takes a deep dive into how to care for your body in a way that both prevents pain, helps you move more efficiently, and enhances your musical expression.
The community is €9 per month (~$11 USD), but you can try it out for 30 days before you ever get charged. To me, the cost is just enough to keep you accountable, while still being fairly affordable and a very good value.
Click the link, take a look around and see if the community is right for you.
Timani Community Membership | (Affiliate: If you buy through this link, I get a small portion of the sale at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the Musician’s Maintenance mission!)
Move Your Mid Back
Keeping your middle back moving comes up a lot in these newsletters. That’s because issues with mid back mobility are associated with problems from the neck to the hand and everything in between. Here’s a great group of exercises from Brendan Synan, PT, DPT, CSCS that will keep this crucial area supple. Watch the video here, then try the routine below.
- Quadruped Thread the Needle: 5 per side. Make sure you breathe the whole way through.
- Sidelying Windmills: 5 per side. Again keep breathing. This one makes me want to hold my breath about 3/4 of the way around.
- 1/2 Kneeling Wall Windmills: 5 per side. And once again keep breathing (repetitive I know, but I bet your not doing it!)
- If you are feeling good and have a little more time, do another 1 or 2 rounds through
Thoracic Mobility | Movestrong PT via Instagram
Make Recovery a Superpower
Did you know that when you practice you are providing the necessary stress to cause an improvement in your playing, but rest is where your body actually solidifies the skills you’ve learned. If you want to reach the peak of what you are capable of, then recovery is key. It’s also key to avoid getting injured or recovering from an injury you’ve already sustained.
Cycling stress and rest is what leads to improvements in your nervous system, which means better playing, more efficient movement and lower injury risk. This cycling obviously happens on a daily scale (practice during the day, sleep at night), but cycling between these two states on a smaller scale can also improve your gains. This is especially true if you are older than 25, after which point nervous systems don’t change as easily or dramatically.
So try this sequence. Practice for about 1.5 hours (this includes 15 min of warming up your body, hand/fingers, and on your instrument, then deliberate practice for 60-70 min, taking microbreaks every 20-30 min, and cooling down for 5-10 min), then take 10 minutes to do this body scan. Repeat every 90 minutes until you are done practicing for the day, then get a good night’s sleep and you’ve got everything your nervous system needs to maximize improvements and everything your tendons and muscles need to recover and get stronger.
If every 90 minutes seems like too much, then try it shortly after you are done practicing for the day or later on that evening. Either way, make sure you get some focused recovery so that you can get the most benefit out of work you put in earlier.
Yoga Nidra Guided Meditation to Relax | Yoga Nidra App via YouTube
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