Tag: injury

Stretches for guitarists

Nicole Neal5 Comments

Following on from last Saturday’s post on neck and shoulder pain associated with guitar playing, I thought I’d share with you some stretches that I’ve reinstated this past week (after being very

What a pain in the neck

naughty and lazy and not doing them! Smack hands!).

These exercises:

(a) work to relieve those feelings and sensations of tightness, sharp pain and dull ache sensations in the back and front or the shoulder, the side of the neck, upper back and even headaches (yes, headaches and even jaw aches you may have been experiencing could well be referred pain from trigger points, or knotted and constricted fibres, in your muscles).

(b) are excellent maintenance exercises to prevent the tightness, pain and dull ache in the shoulder, neck and chest from occurring in the first place.

Just be careful!

I will caveat that this post with the fact that I’m in no way any kind of physical practitioner, yoga teacher or any other kind of biomechanics personage. As ever, and with all my other advice, it is all delivered with the best of intentions.

These exercises are ones that I do and work for me. Hopefully they can work for others, but remember that we are all built and work differently. If you are experiencing a lot of pain, or discomfort or it is recurring, you should head to see your doctor/ physiotherapist/ myotherapist/ Alexander Technique teacher sooner rather than later.

So. On to the stretches!

A few of the stretches are based around some of the stretches and yoga positions that I’ve been working on this week, but I’ve picked out the most accessible and hopefully most relevant ones for us guitarists – those working on opening up the chest and relieving and stretching the neck and shoulders.

As an aside, the yoga I think is really beneficial for “guitarist shoulder”. It’s been working really well for me this week anyway. The first session back after a big hiatus of over a year was a real shock to the system – argh! I’m so weak! – but my old flappy chicken wing of a right shoulder felt really stable and secure and achey only in a good, I’ve-done-a-workout way. The second session felt much easier by comparison, and along with a second myotherapy session, the shoulder is most definitely on the improve. Get on it people!

So anyways, yes, we were getting on with those stretches weren’t we?

Stretch 1 – Neck nods (or as I call it “sniff ya pits”!)

You may have guessed that this delightfully descriptive moniker is not the proper yoga term for the stretch, but it gives you a very good indication of the action you need to perform.

How to perform the stretch

Gently turn your head to the left, and nod your head down as if looking to inspect your armpit – noice. You should feel a nice stretching sensation along the right side of your neck. If you want to increase the stretch place your left hand on the crown of your head and pull your head down slightly, doing so very gently.

Hold the stretch for at least 30 seconds and repeat on the left side and in the centre too, looking down to your chest. Repeat that sequence once more.

You can do this one seated or standing up.

What does this stretch help with?

This stretches out those muscles at the side of your neck (such as the sternocleidomastoid and the levator scapulae), reducing the stress on them, and relieving feelings of tension in the neck and potentially some headache symptoms.

Stretch 2 – Side stretches

How to perform the stretch

This one is best carried out standing up (which you should be doing every 30 minutes or so anyway whilst practicing), but you can do it seated if you really want. 

Raise your arms up above your head, parallel with one another (I always find that action in itself feels really nice after having practiced for a little while), lean very slightly and gently forwards (only a couple of degrees) and slowly bend to the left as far as you’re able.

Hold the stretch for around 30 seconds if you can. Repeat to the right side.

What does this stretch help with?

This stretch helps with postural alignment and stretching out the spine and back muscles. It also gives a little work to the shoulders and upper arms muscles, getting them to work in a different way to playing the guitar (or sitting at a desk and typing like I am now!)

Stretch 3 Standing one arm row (as in boat, not as in having an argument with someone….)

How to perform the stretch 

Right. You know the score by now of standing versus sitting to do these stretches. Raise your right arm to about shoulder height, with your palm open and facing the ground. Then gradually squeeze your shoulder-blade back, and gradually return to the starting point.

Ensure you don’t move your left shoulder or shoulder-blade whilst carrying it this motion. Repeat this movement around 6-10 times. Repeat to the left side.

What does this stretch help with? 

Similarly to the previous stretch, this one gives a little work to the shoulders and upper arms muscles, getting them to work in a different way to playing the guitar. It also works the upper and middle back, helping your trapezius and latissimus dorsi to fire properly.

Muscles connecting the upper extremity to the ...
Latissimus dorsi (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Stretch 4 – Shoulder circles

How to perform the stretch 

Sit or stand tall move your shoulders in a circle, moving forwards. Repeat this action 5 times and then repeat 5 times circling backwards. The movement, as always, a gentle, slow movement.

What does this stretch help with? 

Stretch 5 – Torso twists

How to perform the stretch 

OK, this one you do need to be seated for. Sit tall and place your hands behind your head. Inhale deeply and twist your whole torso, arms and head as far to the right as you can. Hold that for 5-10 seconds and release slowly to the centre. Repeat to the left side. Repeat the sequence again another 2 or 3 times.

What does this stretch help with? 

This last one helps to relieve and maintain the muscles in our back which are responsible for spinal rotation. Sitting in the one position puts stresses on these back muscles and the twisting exercise can help relieve those.

All of these stretches can be done:

  • prior to commencing practice (to warm yourself up a bit and get blood flowing to the area)
  • part way through a practice session (to break it up a bit, and move the muscles in a different way)
  • and most desirably after a practice session (to allow the muscles, again, to work in a different way, to have them stretch where they were contracting during playing and vice versa, to re-centre them, strengthen and relax them, and to get blood flowing through the area to flush out any waste products such as lactic acid.

These stretches are primarily focussed on neck, shoulders and torso. There are a whole bunch of other stretches that can be done for other parts of the body playing our instrument impacts on, such as arms, hands, fingers, hips and lower back which we can also look at another time if you’re interested?

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Giving pain in the neck the cold shoulder – Guitarist’s Shoulder *

Nicole Neal12 Comments
Mylohyoid muscle visible right under jaw
What a pain in the neck (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I wrote a piece earlier on in the year about neck and shoulder issues and my journey in dealing with neck and shoulder pain. The piece outlined how I was revising my playing position, technique and looking at exercises…..Well, guess what folks. The neck and shoulder gremlins have returned. The little buggers!

I know it’s an issue that affects guitarists in all parts of the spectrum – beginners through to pros and everyone in between, so I thought I’d write a little piece on this today. You may have experienced or are experiencing something similar, and so in writing this I hope I can help in some way or start a bit of a discussion. This will also start a series of blog posts about treating and ultimately preventing soreness and overuse injuries of this nature.

So what’s the dealio? What’s going on?

Well, the pain and soreness in my right (and only my right) shoulder back and front (or posterior and anterior, if you want to get all anatomical and stuff) and the right side of my neck has been really building up again over the past couple of weeks. And naughty me for not paying attention to the first little warning signs and nipping it in the bud then. Smack hands!

The particular symptoms of “Guitarist’s Shoulder” that I’ve had going on are:

  • Serious amounts of clicking, particularly across the front of the shoulder joint, where apparently there are some very tight bands of muscle catching and popping across the clavicle (collarbone) – nice.
  • A continuous dull aching sensation in both the front and back of the shoulder joint, leading me to want to punch myself in the shoulder to relieve it!
  • A dull aching sensation sometimes travelling up into the back of my head, jaw and eye and down into my upper arm.
  • Sharp pain in right shoulder-blade, especially when turning my head to the right.
  • Tightness in right side of my neck – a real pain in the neck. Boom boom!

As you can tell from the delightful mix of symptoms it’s not really all that pleasant and can become quite restrictive in terms of playing – very annoying.

Ouch! How does that happen?

I think it’s likely a combination of a few things going on here:

  1. Me being very naughty and lazy and not (a) warming up my shoulder neck and arm muscles before playing, doing a few range of motion exercises (b) giving my muscles a good stretch post playing and (c) being rigorous with stretching between playing sessions
  2. Me being very naughty and lazy and not giving mindful due care and attention to my posture whilst playing.
  3. Not being fully mindful and observant of the little twitches, ticks, reflexes and other seemingly involuntary and often unnecessary movements one makes when practicing and playing. For example, does raising ones toes off the ground and hunching ones shoulders really help you in playing that pianissimo line up of the tenth fret? I’ll let you answer that one…..
  4. Possibly some physical weakness in the back and shoulders that I can address with some strengthening exercises.
  5. Overworked, tired and stressed shoulder, neck and back muscles from too much of one activity without an opposing kind of activity to balance things out.

So what’s next then? How do we go about remedying the situation?

Time for some myotherapy

l cracked it this week, and got really fed up of the constant dull aching sensation and sore neck and decided to I needed to get some immediate physical relief.  Time to get it sorted out properly.

Not in the form of painkillers; I don’t really like to take them unless I really have to because they can mask what your body is trying to tell you. So in this instance I’m sucking it up and listening in carefully to the messages my body has been yelling at me for a while. Immediate physical relief in the form of massage. And not just any massage. Awesomely seriously targeted and condition specific Myotherapy manual manipulation and a bit of dry needling to boot.

Myotherapists are experts in this kind of myofasical pain, its treatment and prevention. My lovely therapist’s diagnosis transliterated into my layperson’s terms is that my neck, shoulder and upper back muscles are really overworked, constantly “switched on” over stretched in one direction and super fatigued. As a result they’re not working properly, they’re all bunched up. To add insult to the injury this bunching also results in the reduction of blood flow to the area meaning the waste products generated by the constantly “switched on” muscles is not being flushed away which adds to the pain, tenderness and tendency to spasm.

The myotherapist tells me that the poor afflicted muscles are the levator scapula, sternocleidomastoid (or SCM for short), the upper trapezius, supraspinatus, and infraspinatus.

The human shoulder joint
The human shoulder joint (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My neck, shoulder and upper back muscles basically need releasing from the prison I’ve trapped them in, they need a good stretch and strengthening up.

After the myo session the next 12 hours or so I felt like been beaten up (which I kind of had!), but that seriously frustrating dull ache and pinching sensation in the back of the shoulder-blade were gone. Wooo! Still a bit of work to do though, as the ol’ chicken wing is still feeling a bit unstable, a bit tight, as is the neck.

I have another myotherapy appointment early next week, so I’ll you posted about the next step in my treatment and the strengthening exercises the myotherapy proposes I do.

To remedy the point about it doing enough stretching, I’m going to try some yoga classes in this first instance (going to give Bikram or hot yoga a whirl) and then follow that later in the year with some Alexander Technique lessons. I’m getting onto the yoga this very weekend so I’ll let you know how that goes.

In terms of my technique, over this next few days I’m going to set the movements radar to high alert. I’m also aiming to observe in greater detail all the movements I make whist playing. I’ll also be doing some stretches and range of motion exercises before and after playing (which I’ll outline for you in a future blog post).

* I’m not actually sure there’s a condition called Guitarist’s Shoulder, like Tennis Elbow or Policeman’s Foot (I shall do some research around that and follow-up….), but that’s what I’m going to call it for now.