I have not done any of the warmups from the Elements program since I ceased work on that program due to the 2nd eye surgery and recovery from it. Somehow I have managed to play guitar all day and a fair number of hours into the night, every day, without noticing any issues with my hands or wrists.
Early this morning, I woke up and was unable to immediately return to sleep, so I picked up my electric guitar and quietly started practicing the minor pentatonic 212121 patterns from the Tim Miller course. By the time I finished practicing these patterns, I noticed some soreness in my wrist, on the side of the thumb. Perhaps it's because of all the guitar playing I've been doing, with approximately a third of those hours on the acoustic guitar, whose high action and thick gauge - compared to the electric guitar - demands more force in my left hand grip. Or it could be I just got my wrist into some bad angles.
In any case, I decided to take today off from playing guitar. Ok, I practiced a couple of things for about 20 minutes but that's it.
The other measure I took to address this new wrist issue was to resume practice of most of the warmups from Elements - the one warmup omitted being the supine hip rotations, as they require me to lie face up on the ground, which is against doctor's orders due to the gas bubble inside the eye. I am supposed to avoid letting the bubble press against the lens because that might create a cataract.
With all the guitar playing I've done daily, and that I want to continue doing every day, I need to take better care of my hands and wrists. Element's catalog of warmups addresses them quite thoroughly. I will also pay more attention to keeping the wrist of the fretting hand straight when playing guitar, typically accomplished by moving the elbow as needed.
No comments:
Post a Comment