Hello and welcome back to Musician’s Maintenance where it’s my job to get you connected with the best musician’ health information I can find. This week I’ve got a few opportunities for you to win free stuff that will support your health and a simple but effective shoulder exercise.
Here’s the features for this week… 1) A Musician’s Wellness Giveaway from Playing Without Pain 2) Kettlebells for musicians contest 3) A simple but effective exercise to keep your shoulders healthy
(Note: If you enjoy these newsletters, please consider forwarding this email to a friend, colleague, teacher or classmate. They can sign up here and then you won’t be the only one you know doing shoulder circles).
Let’s go!
1) A musician’s wellness giveaway from Playing Without Pain
Francesca Leo of Playing Without Pain has put together a great musicians health contest and she was kind enough to include me in the prizes. She’s giving away 6 prize packages, that includes possible combinations of the following.
- A 30 minute session with me!
- A 30 minute session with Janice Ying, PT of Opus PT
- A 30 minute session with David Cartolano of The Conditioned Musician
- A 30 minute session with Shauna Fallihee of The Embodied Singer
- A 30 minute posture and mobility session with Austin Pancer of The Functional Musician
- A 2 week pass for unlimited yoga at the Yoga for All Musicians virtual yoga studio
- At home injury management accessories from from Francesca
Click the link below to learn how to enter! The deadline for entry is July 1, 2020.
Contest: Playing Without Pain Wellness Giveaway | Playing Without Pain
Sponsor: Exercise Mat
I try to use exercises that require as little equipment as possible. However, it can be nice to have a mat to exercise on. Partially because it can make it more comfortable. And partially because unrolling the mat can become part of the ritual that signals that it’s time to exercise.
Remember knowing what to do is the easy part. Doing it consistently enough for long enough to make something change is the hard part.
I’ve actually told people who are struggling with the behavior change aspect of starting an exercise program that they don’t have to do all the exercises if they don’t feel like it. They just have to unroll the mat and do one repetition. More often than not though, if the mat gets unrolled, the exercises get done.
Here’s an affordable, simple mat that can both help make exercising more comfortable as well as consistent.
Basic Exercise Mat | (Affiliate: If you buy through this link, I get a small portion of the sale at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the Musician’s Maintenance mission!)
2) Kettlebells for musicians contest
Kettlebells could be one of the best tools for musicians to maintain their health, but I think they are viewed with fear and skepticism due to the meat-head lifting culture that has made them popular. If you can put that aside though, they are amazing.
Luckily for you, there is a fellow musician who has developed expertise in kettlebells and teaches musicians how to use them safely and effectively. Even better, she is running a contest that allows a free look at how she approaches kettlebells for musicians, as well as the opportunity to win some stuff.
The details are in the Instagram post linked below, but you get entries into the contest by signing up for her 14 day free trial or by referring friend to sign up for the trial.
Sign up, or refer friends, by noon EST on July 6, 2020 for your chance to win!
Contest: Kettlebells for Musicians Contest | Kettlebells with Karen
3) A simple but effective exercise to keep your shoulders healthy
Shoulders are complicated, but keeping them healthy doesn’t have to be. Here’s a nice demo of simple shoulder circles by Melissa White of Intermission that will keep your shoulders moving through all of those weird angles that are often neglected.
Start with the shoulder circles, then consider checking out more of the great work they are doing to support musicians health. I have heard great things about their live sessions and yoga retreats specifically for musicians. Those are obviously bigger commitments (both in terms of time and money), but are well worth the investment if you take caring for your body seriously.
Move: Shoulder Circles | Intermission Session via Instagram