Welcome back to Musician’s Maintenance, for musicians who don’t want to be an injury statistic.
If you are dealing with pain, want to avoid injury, or are curious about strategies to maximize your playing while staying healthy, then let’s talk. I offer a free 15 minute phone consultation to discuss what you are having trouble with and how I may help. Here’s where you can go to schedule.
I’m Dr. Cody Weisbach, and I appreciate spending the next few minutes in your inbox. Below you’ll find the workout of the week and a few more resources to help maintain your body at least as well as you maintain your instrument.
Let’s get to it!
Workout of the Week: Forearm pain? Try this 7 exercise routine
Everyone from guitar shredders to classical flutists and every instrumentalist in-between puts an incredible amount of stress on their forearm muscles. As a result overuse and pain are very common amongst musicians.
Whether you are looking to take care of some nagging pain, or just want to prevent injury in the first place, here’s a great routine that address all of the key areas in a very short amount of time.
Watch the videos here, then try the routine below.
- Dumbbell Supination: 10 times slow. If you don’t have a weight, a hammer works great.
- Radial Nerve Glides: 10 times slow.
- Reverse Wrist Curl- Eccentric: 10 lowers. It should take 3-4 seconds to lower. If you don’t have a weight, a water bottle works great. A little discomfort is ok during the exercise, but start easy enough that you are sure pain won’t flare-up the next day.
- Standing Band T: 10 times. If you don’t have a band, you can do the same movement lying face-down on the floor. The position is the same as the shoulder blade squeeze lying on stomach, just with your arms out to the sides.
- Reverse Wrist Curl: 10 times. 1-2 seconds up. 3-4 second lower.
- Thoracic Knee Grab + Rotation: 5 per side. Make sure you are breathing.
- Sidelying Shoulder ER: 10 per side. 1-2 seconds up. 3-4 seconds down. Here’s my version of this exercise.
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 Musician’s Workout Library to find something that does.
Tennis Elbow Rehab Exercises | Dr. Caleb Burgess via Instagram
Podcast: I bet you’ve lost track of a few body parts
Your brain has a map of all of the areas and movements of your body. When you practice, you improve the precision of this map for the areas that you are using to play.
However, staying in a sustained posture for a long time can cause the map for the stationary body parts to get less precise over time. This is a very common phenomenon for musicians and can contribute to injury. Luckily, body mapping and Alexander Technique are great ways to combat this issue.
Heidi Begay has been tackling musician’s health with her August Flute 360 Podcast series on body mapping (see her previous interviews here).
This week she has an interview with Dr. Amy Likar who is an absolute expert in the area. Use the link to your favorite podcast service below, listen to Heidi and Amy chat, and see if you can find something to incorporate into your practice.
Episode 170: An Interview with Dr. Amy Likar | Flute 360 Podcast
Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio
Help Turn the Tide of Injury in Musicians
The rate of injury in musicians is insanely high and injury 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!