Welcome back to Musician’s Maintenance! The holiday season is upon us which probably means nearly endless rehearsals and performances.
If there ever was a time to take care of your body, it’s now. My job is to make that as easy as possible!
This week’s edition is sponsored by The Ultimate Music Business Summit. Music school is amazing for teaching you how to be a musician, but it’s not great at teaching you how to succeed as a musician.
The Ultimate Music Business Summit will help you take control of your music business and offer a variety of valuable strategies for increasing your income and growing your impact.
The 3-day summit runs from Jan 6-8, 2022 and tickets start at just $14 if you register by 11/30/21. Get your tickets here!
I’m Dr. Cody Weisbach, and I appreciate spending the next few minutes in your inbox. This week I’ve got a few great ideas to keep your nerves healthy, as well as an interview with several of my favorite musician’s health people.
Let’s go!
3 Exercises for Healthy Nerves
Nerves are amazing things. They slide, glide, stretch, squish and continue to pass the messages necessary to play your instrument. They are also both a common site of injury for musicians as well as one of the most neglected areas when it comes to taking care of your body.
Here’s an Instrgram post from a group of physical therapists called The PreHab Guys that has an excellent description of the three nerves that travel through your arms as well as an exercise for each one.
These can act as wonderful recovery exercises that can be done at the end of the day to relive some of the tension that has accumulated from your playing.
First, watch the description and the variations of each exercise. Next, pick the variation that feels the best to you and try a few repetitions.
If you’re still feeling good and want to do more, try the full routine below.
- Ulnar Nerve Glide: Pick the variation that feels best and do 5-10 repetitions on each side.
- Median Nerve Glide: Pick the variation that feels best and do 5-10 repetitions on each side.
- Radial Nerve Glide: Pick the variation that feels best and do 5-10 repetitions on each side.
- If you want to do more, do another 1-2 rounds through each.
As always, make sure you understand the newsletter exercise ground rules before you start.
Also, keep in mind that nerve exercises are good, but nerves are very sensitive to their environment. For musicians with nerve problems I see in my clinic, glides like these can be helpful, but more often than not the underlying problem is nerve irritation due to issues in the shoulder, shoulder blade and/or mid back. I have plenty of options to address these areas in the Musician’s Maintenance Workout Library.
Numbness and Tingling Rehab | The PreHab Guys via Instagram
Riffing on Musician’s Health
I’m going to try something new.
I love talking about musician’s health and feel like there’s so much I have to share, but my message needs a little refining. The best way for me to do that is to just talk it out and get some feedback.
So I’ve decided to experiment with going live on the Musician’s Maintenance Instagram account and talking through different topics that I think would be helpful for you to understand in more depth and nuance.
The first session is going to be this Friday, 11/26 at 8:30 pm MST where I’ll discuss nerve issues to compliment the exercises above.
Fee free to join, give feedback and I’m happy to answer any questions you have as well.
Hit reply or send me an email (cody@musiciansmaintenance.com) if you have a topic you want me to discuss in future sessions.
Hope to see you there!
An Amazing Musician’s Health Interview
If you listen to one podcast this week, make it this one. It combines two of my favorite musician’s health groups out there. Corpsnore and Yoga for All Musicians (YAM). Both of which have been featured frequently in past newsletters and now finally you can listen to both in one place!
Be sure to check out YAM classes (I have!). They currently have a 10 for $10 deal going, or you can usually find a free YAM 101 class to see if it’s right for you.
Corpsonore also has a excellent library of affordable on-demand and live classes that cater to the specific needs of musicians.
Episode 49: Interview with Yoga for All Musicians (YAM) | Corpsonore Podcast
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!