Hand strength advice

Philly_Q

Airmiles said:

I've also recently discovered this exercise and... bloody hell it works! I wish I'd known this years ago.

That's fascinating, I've never seen that before!

CarpeDiem

guitars4you said:

I'm sure there are many who can help better than me - But just a pointer - A local teacher and very nice player started early signs of arthritis - He went to see the doctor who refereed him to a physio - The first thing she asked him is what is your warm up exercise routine - Bottom line is he has never had one - Played for over 40 years and as I said a very good player - She then asked him why not - All athletes will warm up and your hands are now going to do 'athletic work' - Bottom line is he know does warm up work all the time - I don't know what book, format. procedure he does, but I know it has changed his thought process - I bet some will do warm up work but I bet most don't 

I totally agree on the benefit of doing warm up exercises. I use some John Petrucci routines that I discovered years ago. Sadly, I can’t play like him.

digitalkettle

Philly_Q said:

Airmiles said:

I've also recently discovered this exercise and... bloody hell it works! I wish I'd known this years ago.

That's fascinating, I've never seen that before!

I'd modify that:

• ease in by switching to adjacent strings...then work towards extremes
• take it further by switching finger pairs (all combos)
• always be monitoring for tension

Philly_Q

^^ I was surprised to find I can do the exercise, fairly easily, but even a few minutes later I can feel that if I'd tried to do the full 20 with each finger my hand would be aching.  To be honest there are far bigger issues with my playing than hand strength or finger independence, but it's a little confidence boost to be able to do something... anything.