Hey there musicians. Here’s your weekly reminder to get your body moving. Even just a little movement here and there will help keep your body healthy.
This week’s musician specific movements focus on nerve care, hypermobility, and shoulder mobility.
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!
Nerve Care Basics: Blood Flow, Movement, and Space
Injuries associated with nerve irritation (think carpal tunnel, thoracic outlet and others) are fairly common in musicians. We tend to think about taking care of muscles, but we don’t want to forget about nerves.
Here’s a nice Instagram post from The Prehab Guys that includes an explanation of blood flow, movement and space for healthy nerves along with four exercises to get you started. Watch the videos here, then try the routine below. You’ll notice that I’ve mixed the order up a little. That’s because I tend to like stretching the joints and muscles around the nerve first, then moving the nerves themselves.
- Thoracic Spine Rotation: 10 times on each side with either the hand behind head or hand behind back variation. Make sure you keep breathing. Description is on the 4th slide.
- Median Nerve Slider: 10 times slow on each side. Description is on the 3rd slide.
- Hip 90-90 Dynamic Stretch: 5 per side. Description is on the 6th slide.
- Sciatic Nerve Slider: 10 times slow on each side. Description is on the 5th slide.
- If you are feeling good and have a little extra time, you can do another 1 or 2 rounds through.
How to Relieve Nerve Pain | The Prehab Guys
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With Great Mobility Comes Great Responsibility
Hypermobility is common in musicians and it is associated with many painful problems. But did you know it also may be your superpower. I’ve heard speculation that Liszt and Paganini we both thought to be hypermobile. Hypermobility is also common in many other high performers in sport and athletics as well.
So hypermobility could be your superpower, but as we learned from Spiderman, “with great power comes great responsibility.” If you are hypermobile, you are at higher risk of injury and have to be a little more proactive about taking care of your body.
I like to think of it like owning a really expensive sports car. The performance is out of this world, but the cost of maintaining it is going to be way higher than owning a Honda Accord. The biggest difference is that with a car it’s clear which one you have, and you get to choose which one you buy. With your body you don’t get to choose. You may have a sports car when you’d rather just have the Accord. It can also be hard to tell which one you are driving.
While you can’t choose whether or not you are hypermobile, there is a simple way to get a better idea of where you stand on the hypermobility spectrum. Here’s a great post from physical therapist Lizzie Kieffer that will take you through the Beighton Scale and teach you how to interpret it. Watch the video here and do the tests to learn where you stand. It’s important to point out that whether your body is more similar to a Honda or a Ferrari, either is more than enough to be a successful musician. Feel free to hit reply and let me know how you scored!
Are You Hypermobile | Lizzie Kieffer, PT, DPT
How’s Your Shoulder Mobility?
Musician’s use their shoulders…a lot. But when you use them, it’s not making big movements, it’s holding them in generally the same place for hours at a time. So it’s common to end up with stiff shoulders, which can increase your risk for pain in not only your shoulders, but also your neck, mid back, elbows and forearms.
To continue with the car metaphor from above, having stiff shoulders is like driving with your hand brake on. Luckily, it’s pretty straight forward to take the brakes off. This a great sequence to test, exercise, and re-test your shoulders from Austin Pancer of The Functional Musician. Watch the videos here, then try the routine below.
Remember that with any of these techniques, more pressure isn’t better. Results will come if you use enough pressure to feel some discomfort, but still be able to keep relaxed breathing and a relaxed face throughout.
- Do the overhead test to get a baseline.
- Trap Smash and Floss: 90 sec per side.
- Lat Mobilization: 90 sec per side.
- Shoulder Rotator Small and Floss: 20 per side.
- Re-check your overhead test. Did anything change?
Overhead Mobility | Austin Pancer
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