Welcome back to Musician’s Maintenance: Your weekly reminder that taking care of your body is at least as important as taking care of your instrument.
Just making it this far is a great step toward building the habit of keeping your body healthy (more on that below).
Here’s a quick reminder of how to use the newsletter…
Priority #1: Recovery
Try to set aside 5 minutes each night this week and try the recovery program below. Your body will thank you!
Priority #2: Musician Specific Strengthening
If you’ve got the recovery work dialed in and want to take the next step, pick 3 days this week where you have another 10 minutes to do some targeted strength work.
This month we’re working on the rotator cuff and shoulder blades. You’ll find the workout for this week below.
Need Some Customized Help?
I’m happy to do a free 15 minute Zoom session with anyone subscribed to the newsletter where I can answer questions, give some advice and make 1 or 2 customized adjustments to your exercise and wellness plan. Schedule here.
If you know you need to take care of your body and are ready to hire a professional to help you, I also offer affordable coaching. You can learn more about the coaching program here.
If you do nothing else this week, try to set aside just 5 minutes each day this week and give the recovery program below a try.
Recovery: 3 Amazing Benefits from 1 Easy Strategy
Breathwork is one of the best recovery strategies out there. The 3 biggest benefits for musicians are…
- Helps you move your nervous system from “fight or flight” towards “rest, relax and heal.” No matter how good the exercise, you won’t get much recovery benefit if your system is in “fight or flight.”
- Non-sleep, deep rest strategies like this actually improve how quickly you learn motor tasks, such as playing an instrument.
- Your diaphragm is really the foundation of your core. Getting these muscles organized can help everything else work more easily.
Here’s a nice routine from Austin Pancner of The Functional Musician.
Read the post and watch the videos to learn more about the importance of diaphragm expansion.
Set aside 5 minutes each evening and give the routine a try.
- 5 slow breaths focused on expanding into the stomach
- 5 slow breaths focused on expanding into the lower back
- 5 slow breaths focused on expanding into the sides of your rib cage
- 5 slow breaths focused on expanding into the upper chest
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 or schedule a free call and I can give you some additional direction.
How is Your Breathing? | The Functional Musician via Instagram
Musician Specific Strengthening: January 2022 – Week 2
This week you’ll continue with the same two exercises (sidelying shoulder rotation, shoulder blade squeeze on stomach) from last week.
The plan is to make the exercises very slightly more challenging by adding a few repetitions for each set. The workout is below, and scroll down a little further to review the exercises.
As a reminder: set aside 10 minutes or so for 1-3 days this week. It’s best if you do the strengthening on days with a lighter playing load. Remember the exercise guidelines, watch the exercise videos to learn the movements and try the routine below.
This Week’s Workout
SET 1
Sidelying Shoulder Rotation: 7 reps right. 7 Reps left.
Shoulder Blade Squeeze on Stomach: 7 reps
SET 2
Sidelying Shoulder Rotation: 7 reps right. 7 Reps left.
Shoulder Blade Squeeze on Stomach: 7 reps
SET 3
Sidelying Shoulder Rotation: 7 reps right. 7 Reps left.
Shoulder Blade Squeeze on Stomach: 7 reps
Exercise 1: Sidelying Shoulder Rotation
Full Details for the Sidelying Shoulder Rotation
Exercise 2: Shoulder Blade Squeeze on Stomach
Full Details for the Shoulder Blade Squeeze on Stomach
Resource: Fiddle and Pipe Book Club
The Fiddle and Pipe Podcast is spending January reviewing one of my Favorite Books: Atomic Habits by James Clear. Grab the book and follow along (or just listen to the podcasts) and get to work building some habits.
Hopefully how I structure the exercises in this newsletter is consistent with making the habit of taking care of you body as easy as possible.
Fiddle and Pipe Podcast Book Club (Listen on: Apple | Spotify)
Support: 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!
Quote Photo by Bruce Christianson on Unsplash