# *HAND INJURY* HELP!!



## DaveCarter (Sep 15, 2008)

Ok, Im getting a bit scared now; Im back to uni this weekend to start my final year of music degree, majoring in performance. I went a bit overboard on practise last week, namely with about 8 hours practise on friday (Yes I know some people do that and more every day!! ). Mostly Frank Gambale's Chopbuilder, but I spent quite a while on the sweeps from Nevermore's This Godless Endeavour.

Now ever since I woke up saturday morning Ive had pain in my little finger, mainly around the knuckle. Its worse when I try to stretch it out (i.e. exactly the movement of those extended sweeps), I havent played at all since then but today the pain's started to creep down the side of my hand. I searched on guitar-related hand injuries but most articles just talked about carpal tunnel and tendonitis, both of which Im sure are long-term injuries. Ive never had any problems like this before, as I usually play about 2 hours a day, but obviously if I still cant play by the time Im back at uni...well basically Im pretty f**ked. If anyone's got any advice on what it might be or how to treat it, it'd be very much apprecited!!

Thanks.


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## budda (Sep 15, 2008)

if you still cant play, explain the situation to the profs - there really isnt much you can do besides study your theory and music composition etc while not playing.

tip: dont practise for 8 hours a day


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## Scali (Sep 15, 2008)

I suppose the best thing is to give your hand some rest. Then slowly pick up the practice routine again. Never play through the pain.


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## DaveCarter (Sep 15, 2008)

budda said:


> tip: dont practise for 8 hours a day



b-b-b-but...thats what teh l33t do  fair point though, it was probably the jump from 1-2 hours/day to 8 hours that did it. Along with those huuuge stretches (Damn you, Loomis!!). Ive no idea how some people play for 10-12 hours a day without getting RSI!!

Yeah I'll definitely rest it for now, Im not playing at all until the pain's completely gone.


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## Doddus (Sep 15, 2008)

If your going to practice 8 hours a day your body needs to be able to handle that 8 hours of exercise.
If your body can't handle the 8 hours then it wont be able to generate enough fluids while practicing to keep you from injuring your hands.
It might sound stupid but make sure your body can handle the 8 hours before you start your 8 hour practice regime! (i.e. make sure your body's fitness levels can cope)
Anyway yeah, I would go see someone about it straight away seemings your music degree depends on it.

Best of luck with the recovery.


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## metalfiend666 (Sep 15, 2008)

I'd say that you've most likely over exerted yourself and it'll clear up in a few days. Think of it this way, if you go the the gym for 8 hours when you're used to 2, you're really going to hurt for a few days after.


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## hvm_pt (Sep 15, 2008)

Go see an Osteopath.
If you don't know what kind of medical professional their are, check wikipedia.

I had a similar problem a year ago, with my pinky starting to get numb and spreading to the other two fingers and all the way to my arm, and he reached to a conclusion it wasn't RSI, but was a problem with the nerve system (tendon?) on my shoulder. 
Where, because my shoulder muscles were to weak to hold the guitar for so long (not 8 hours, but even so allot of time), the guitar weight would push my shoulder against the shoulder capsule (where the arm rotates). That would push/pull the tendons and nerves right around the shoulder. So the conclusion was, that same nerve was "under pressure" in the shoulder at the same time I was trying to use it in my exercises.


Cheers,
Hugo


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## Groff (Sep 15, 2008)

My pinky will get a little sore like that whenever I practice for an extended period of time. It lasts a few days, then it goes away. Just rest it and you should be good.


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## Maniacal (Sep 15, 2008)

You dont need to practice for 8 hours a day, you cant focus for that long. 

3 hours of focused practice will get you far better than 8 hours of noodling about


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## DaveCarter (Sep 15, 2008)

Thats the thing, this was 8 hours of proper scales n metronome practise, with at least half an hour solid on that evil Nevermore lick. So what about the whole Vai 10-hour workout? I remember Satch saying in a interview that on tour he practises for about 13 hours a day


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## SteveDendura (Sep 15, 2008)

I've had problems like that before. I had a Cyst surgically removed from my left wrist in '06 and then I had a lot of stiffness from the scar tissue. 

But I've also had severe pain in certain fingers, or different parts of my arms in both hands and arms for years. And I took pain killers, used IcyHot, and went to doctors. I still get these pains once in a while, but a lot of it is due to stress. 

Some things that helped me were taking a baths in hot water, drinking plenty of water, taking IB Profen, and just taking it easy. But the number one thing was I got this book called the "Principles of Correct Practice for Guitar", by Jamie Andreas. He talks about the mechanics of each individual muscle and how to de-stress them. It's really worth checking out. It's for all styles of guitar playing, because it's more focused on YOU and YOUR body/muscles than on chops and shit.

So, take it easy when you practice. Play something about a dozen times flawlessly, then move on to some other exercise with different stretches or give one hand a break, by working on legato, or alternate picking. Oh, and using a metronome to FORCE yourself to play slower and with a light touch will help you play flawlessly and PAINLESSLY! 

Practice makes perfect (NO, NOT EVEN)

"Practice makes permament. Perfect practice makes perfect."

So, if every time we practice we do it until it hurts, that pain could become permament. You must become aware that you're getting tired, or feeling tension, so you can stop practicing BEFORE you are in pain. A lot of times I felt fine until I woke up the next day. 

You probably do not have a serious problem. But it may be irritating and last for a week or two. So, try to play with a light touch and a little slower and take breaks often. Set a timer and don't play longer than 20 - 30 minutes. I still do that and I started having my problems back in '04. 


And my last advice will be that a regular doctor won't do a damn thing for you but tell you to get rest, take pain killers, etc. So, if you think it's a serious problem (like pain that's a 9 out of 10), you should see a specialist. I went to a place called Michigan Hand Center. I had been to about 6 doctors in 2 years, but the first time I went to MHC, the doc said, basically, "does that hurt"? (not there, it hurts here) "Ok, you want to know what you've got"? (No shit, doc what is it) "A cyst". It was like less than a minute and he knew. 

Hope this helps dude. I play about 1 - 2 hours a day. And I perform with Dendura 3 times a month or so. I practice about 6 days out of the week.  A day off doesn't hurt you.....if you're already in pain.


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## DaveCarter (Sep 15, 2008)

Wow, thanks for that mate. Its shocking that problems that serious can come from over-playing (that is what caused it, right?). Obviously I dont have anything as serious as that, but Im definitely going to get hold of that book. Im all for avoiding any long term damage, as Ive met a lot of guys with carpal tunnel, RSI etc. so I try to correct my posture wherever possible. I know my metronome discipline is good but if its done with bad technique then its still potentially dangerous long-term. Thanks again, great post!!


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## HammerAndSickle (Sep 15, 2008)

To whoever said that 8 hours noodling is useless... you're _so_ wrong. That 13-hour practice Satch was talking about? Warm ups, then nothing but _playing_. These people are at a level where technique doesn't really need to be practiced. Melody _always_ needs to be practiced. Composition always needs to be practiced.

There's only so far you can go with practicing one sweep segment (written by someone else, mind you) or even mindlessly metronome-ing scales and riffs. Technique is absolutely important to develop. But are you a guitarist or a musician? Write. Learn how different intervals sound. Develop a "harmonic bank" of which sounds give which emotional messages. There's plenty of merit to be found in noodling.


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## TonalArchitect (Sep 15, 2008)

All right, here's the deal. 

One can practice for ten or however many hours a day, as long as certain precautions are taken. 


1.) Take a ten-minute break after every fifty minutes of practice.

2.) Warm up before starting (this is especially crucial for stretches). 

3.) If it hurts, stop. This is not weight training. Shoot on sight anyone who tells you to push yourself through stuff. 

4.) Corollary to 3, If you feel muscle tension during a lick/exercise, stop, let the muscles in your hand completely relax, and then, this should be after ten to thirty seconds, resume playing. (Note, seconds are much longer than Western Civilization gives them credit, so look at a clock; thirty of them take longer than you might expect. It's that way for me, at least.) 

However, take a break from guitar as you've said, although this doesn't mean you can't practice. 

What the hell does that mean? 

Neuroscience (that is, putting people in MRI's) has shown that vividly imagining yourself practicing, that is practicing in your mind, has almost the same pattern of brain activity as physically practicing. 

Still not convinced?

There's enough evidence in psychological literature that mental practicing has benefits. One anecdote tells of a pianist who was detained for years in a prison (I can't remember if he was a P.O.W.). During that time, he never touched a piano, but when he was released, years later, he went on tour, his skill undiminished. In fact, some critics said that his prowess increased. 

Every day he played every note of every piece he knew in his head. 

So just practice as vividly as you can in your mind; it'll be almost as good as the real thing 'til your wounds heal.


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## DaveCarter (Sep 15, 2008)

TonalArchitect said:


> Neuroscience (that is, putting people in MRI's) has shown that vividly imagining yourself practicing, that is practicing in your mind, has almost the same pattern of brain activity as physically practicing.





Every train/bus ride, every hour Im at my day job, whenever Im cooking/eating, whenever Im bored, thats exactly what Im doing


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## TonalArchitect (Sep 15, 2008)




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## SteveDendura (Sep 15, 2008)

I've heard that too. Practice is every bit as much mental as physical. Sometimes I play note for note with the correct alternate picking patterns and can actually see my fingers on the correct frets. And even the fingers that are not doing anything.  What's much harder for me is to hear the intervals. I don't have perfect pitch. 

Actually that's in that book "Principles for Correct Practice for Guitar". It's harder to practice mentally than physically for me.


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## Maniacal (Sep 15, 2008)

HammerAndSickle said:


> To whoever said that 8 hours noodling is useless... you're _so_ wrong. That 13-hour practice Satch was talking about? Warm ups, then nothing but _playing_. These people are at a level where technique doesn't really need to be practiced. Melody _always_ needs to be practiced. Composition always needs to be practiced.
> 
> There's only so far you can go with practicing one sweep segment (written by someone else, mind you) or even mindlessly metronome-ing scales and riffs. Technique is absolutely important to develop. But are you a guitarist or a musician? Write. Learn how different intervals sound. Develop a "harmonic bank" of which sounds give which emotional messages. There's plenty of merit to be found in noodling.



I didnt say it was a waste of time, I just dont think you need to work on technique for 8 hours a day. I do 1-2 and I am constantly improving. 

I do ear training every day as well, but that has nothing to do with practicing a guitar.


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## TonalArchitect (Sep 15, 2008)

SteveDendura said:


> I don't have perfect pitch.
> Actually that's in that book "Principles for Correct Practice for Guitar". It's harder to practice mentally than physically for me.



I don't have perfect pitch either, but I can live without it. If you want more neuroscience applied to music, check out _Musicophilia _by Oliver Sacks. The parts about musical hallucinations will make you fear hearing loss. 

And when I practice mentally, I have difficulty in the same places.


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## DaveCarter (Sep 16, 2008)

SteveDendura said:


> I've heard that too. Practice is every bit as much mental as physical. Sometimes I play note for note with the correct alternate picking patterns and can actually see my fingers on the correct frets. And even the fingers that are not doing anything.  What's much harder for me is to hear the intervals. I don't have perfect pitch.
> 
> Actually that's in that book "Principles for Correct Practice for Guitar". It's harder to practice mentally than physically for me.



Im definitely getting that book! Cant find it on any UK sites yet  But yeah mental practicing definitely helps, its difficult to describe in words but you really can work on your co-ordination between picking and fretting hands, learn scale and arpeggios shapes, work out chord voicings, almost anything you can do by practicing physically. Sounds ridiculous though! I think you'd need to be fairly advanced to be able to do it properly though, Im not sure beginner's would undersand whats involved. Ive not heard anyone else mention this before, good to see other people do it as well!


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## SteveDendura (Sep 16, 2008)

here is a link to it from Amazon ( for the book) Amazon.com: The principles of correct practice for guitar: Jamie Andreas: Books

here's a link for guitar principles The Principles of Correct Practice for Guitar


How do you feel today? I'm pretty sore myself from sanding drywall and painting. I've got to take it easy because I've got a gig this weekend, but I have a lot of work to do building/finishing our rehearsal space in the basement 

You know what's really funny? If you practice slowly enough and so you can pay attention, you can play every single note of every song you know in your head.  You have to focus intensely, but it's cool. Helps to remember arrangements and stuff too. Especially if there are time signature changes.

But in order for me to get around the pitch thing when I write, I sometimes sing my melody line or riff into a hand held tuner so I can then play what's in my head on guitar. I've come up with dozens of riffs in my head and sang them this way. However, I'm almost never on pitch, so I use the meter on the tuner to tune the note I'm singing. It's usually VERY close.


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## DaveCarter (Sep 16, 2008)

Cheers for those links, it actually works out cheaper to get the book straight off his website. I'll be doing that when I get a spare £20!

Unfortunately my hand feels exactly the same as it did on saturday morning, no better no worse, despite the fact Ive been using ice packs and taking anti-inflammatories for 4 days. I have a doctors appointment Thursday to make sure Ive ticked all the boxed, but as you've said, all Im expecting is to be told to rest it, take painkillers etc. 

Whats worse is, I got a call today from my buddy on the music course saying he's contacted the course director about putting together a metal night and he's got the green light! He wants me to play lead for him and rehearsals start next week! Either I'll be totally out of practise from resting it or I still wont be able to play


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Sep 16, 2008)

Lord loves a working man; don't trust whitey; see a doctor and get rid of it.

I messed up my shoulder not too long ago by unloading surfboards from a car, and my arm was totally useless for two weeks. It healed, eventually, but it took time. Speaking from that perspective, I hope you don't have any permanent damage.


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## TonalArchitect (Sep 16, 2008)

And speaking of permanent damage, it's better to miss out on a jam session/performance now than to screw yourself up for the long term.


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## DaveCarter (Sep 17, 2008)

Yeah for sure, Im not playing until its back to normal. I doubt its anything too serious from one OTT practise session though. I just wont be trying those Nevermore sweeps again in a hurry!!


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## TonalArchitect (Sep 17, 2008)

chavhunter said:


> I doubt its anything too serious from one OTT practise session though. I just wont be trying those Nevermore sweeps again in a hurry!!



True, but ignoring a small injury can make it worse, but since you're not doing that, I wouldn't be worried. 

I'll share an unwarranted anecdote now: 

After not playing too much guitar for a while during my junior year, I started practicing for the talent show. I didn't have any epic practice sessions of doom, but at one point my fingers just started hurting. When I would go to fret a note, I felt a kind of sharp, but by no means severe, pain. It went away, and I've never experienced it again.


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## DaveCarter (Sep 17, 2008)

Ive had that too, just a couple of times. Usually when playing bar-chords, almost like painful joints in the fingers. I think it might be due to not warming up properly, but its not happened for a while and Im going to be making sure I warm up properly now. New finger exercises FTW 

Update: just got back from the doc. As expected she said to keep going with the anti-inflammatories but use the gel instead of tablets (due to the stomach upsets they can cause). But believe it or not she said that instead of resting the hand I should actually be mobilising it with stretches e.g. using a stress ball. She said dont actually play guitar since thats what caused the injury, but keeping the hand still wasnt going to help it recover, as I need to keep all my fingers moving. I can see that it would strengthen the hand but Im a bit hesitant to take her advice on this one...


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## DaveCarter (Oct 8, 2008)

I thought Id update this since now I actually know what the problem was, and how to avoid it. Ive now seen 2 doctors and a hand specialist who also took an X-ray.

Basically I had tendonitis from overplaying, its what happens when you go from playing 1-2 hours a day to suddenly 8 hours practising fast licks with big stretches - BAD IDEA!! I ended up with about a month off of playing, since the only thing you can do to get rid of inflammed tendons is don't play at all. Nothing. Even a cheeky 5 minutes here and there is enough to aggravate the problem and stop it healing properly. Also dont do anything that's a similar motion to guitar playing i.e. typing at a computer. Its only from the last couple of weeks of playing absolutely nothing combined with anti-inflammatory gel and painkillers that now the pain has finally gone, and I can start to play again.

The best way to avoid this problem in the first place is to stretch (check out the first chapter of JP's Rock Discipline) and warm-up SLOWLY before every practise session, never hit the fast stuff cold. Take breaks every hour, and stretch in the these breaks as well as after a big practise session. If you start to notice any constant pains in the fingers/wrists then take a couple of days off, and if it lasts any more than a week go straight to a specialist. Thats basically the advice Id give, most of which I got straight from the hand specialist. Hope that helps!!


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## TonalArchitect (Oct 8, 2008)

I'm glad to hear that you can play again.


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## SteveDendura (Oct 9, 2008)

Awesome man. I'll bet you're feeling a lot of relief now.


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## wannabguitarist (Oct 20, 2008)

I think I have this same problem


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## Harry (Oct 20, 2008)

Something that may be of interest.

I once remember reading some anataomist's report, a while ago now, about how playing guitar longer than a certain amount each day will not result in anymore progress physically, much the same as working out for too long and not leaving enough time between work outs can do the same.

They concluded, the optimal max time that should be spent each day playing is no more than 5 hours to significantly reduce the risk of injury and to maximize progress.
And also, it's important to play a similar amount each day... not sporadically (like 1 hour days, the next day 10 hours, the next 2 etc).

Of course, some people will be quick to point out Steve Vai practiced 10 hours a day, Satriani regularly does around that much while on tour and a whole host of other guys too, but they were lucky not go have injuries and are just freaks perhaps

But look at many classical virtuosos.. many of them typically maybe spent 4-5 hours a day.
It's much better to play 5 hours a day, have greater balance in your life and do other things you enjoy, then locking yourself up in a room for 10-12 hours woodshedding excessively.

Also perhaps note, that many of today's "super shredders" like Rusty Cooley and Francesco Fareri (not a fan of Fareri's music, but the point is he has insane chops), guys along those lines, practised less daily than Steve Vai did, but chances are they developed greater technical facility through not over working their fingers.


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## TonalArchitect (Oct 20, 2008)

Yes, this is true for both neurological and muscular reasons. 

Like working out, you need time for your muscles to heal and develop.

Similar thing with your brain. Skill has a physical corrolary in the neural networks in the brain. The brain is plastic (has the capacity for change), but it needs time _to_ change. 

Same thing with studying. Take breaks; there's a certain length time (I cannot remember how long) after which study is dramatically less effective.

On a happy note (fairly off topic) our brains can hold virtually limitless amounts of information. One cannot conceivably "run out of space." So if there's a drummer out there who wants to learn all of _Catch 33_, it's possible, just difficult.


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