Welcome back to Musician’s Maintenance, for musicians who just can’t afford to have pain and injury limit their playing.
This issue is brought to you by me! You take lessons for your instrument, but have you thought of taking lessons to lean how to get the most out of your body? I’m now offering private coaching on injury prevention and musician’s wellness, priced similar to what you would pay for lessons on your instrument. Learn more here.
I’m Cody, and I appreciate spending the next few minutes in your inbox. Below you’ll find resources and exercises to help you maintain your body at least as well as you maintain your instrument. Let’s get to it!
How to Row
Having good control, strength and endurance of the shoulder blade muscles is important for nearly every musician. Your shoulder blades create the stability for everything else down the arm. If they don’t perform, then you’re shoulder, neck, forearm, wrist and fingers all have to do more work.
The row is an excellent exercise to improve the strength and endurance of these shoulder blade muscles, but I can’t tell you how often I see it performed in a way that ends up being a waste of time.
Here’s a 3.5 minute video from Angela McCuiston of MusicStrong Fitness that is an amazing description of how to properly do the exercise, along with common mistakes.
Watch the video, then pick a band row variation from this video, also by Angela. Next grab a band, go to the gym, or just do the movement with your arms and try the one exercise workout below.
- Band Row: 5-10 repetitions. 3 sets (rest about 30 second between sets). Tempo: 1 second pull. 2 second hold. 4 second controlled release.
- Note: Angela recommends 12-15 reps in the video, but with the long tempo and form focus, I prefer fewer reps in order to make is easier to actually do all of the reps well.
As always, make sure you understand the newsletter exercise ground rules before you start. Also, if this program doesn’t work for you, check out the workouts library to find something that does.
How to Row and Banded Row | MusicStrong Fitness via Instagram
FREE Musician Specific Yoga
This week is the one year anniversary of Yoga for All Musicians, and to celebrate they are offering FREE yoga classes all week. Yoga has the potential to be hugely beneficial for musicians if and only if the teacher understands the unique needs of musicians.
Luckily Yoga for All Musicians was created for musicians, by musicians and so you will be in excellent hands. I just took a class yesterday with Claire and it was amazing!
So if you’re already a yoga lover, this is a great chance to do a little more. If you’ve considered yoga, but have been apprehensive about trying, this is the perfect opportunity to give it a go. Here’s an Instagram post with the details, but you can also hit the link below to find a class that will work for you.
FREE Musician Specific Yoga | Yoga for All Musicians
Help Turn the Tide of Injury in Musicians
The rate of injury in musicians is insanely high and it ends more careers than it needs to.
If you want to be a part the solution, one of the easiest things you can do is connect fellow musicians with good resources.
If you find information like this helpful, please consider forwarding this email to a friend, colleague, teacher or classmate. They can also sign up here. Thanks!