Practice side-effects!!! WTF!!!

After a say 10+ mins of repeatitious riff exercise my fingers (left fretting hand) are pretty sore. My picking hand ain't sore at all coz all the picking comes from my fingers or wrist, and I try to be relaxed while practicing.

I should have asked this eariler when I first started guitar. The Q is... drum roll....Well if you lift weights, to simply describe the sore sensation is like the ones you get after a good workout. Muscles are sore but you feel light and high. Thus if you eat and sleep well you have gained improvement.

Is guitar like weight training??? What is the most "correct" thing you exprience after practice??? Because I believe after weights you gotta feel the burn or you're not gaining anything although you do end up toning, is it the same for guitar? Is it insane to push your left fingers to the limit (2 to 10 bpm increase per day)???

And if this topic of curiousity has been posted here already link it for me. Thanks a lot mate(s)



[Edited by andy82 on 10-02-2003 at 09:55 PM]

I've never had soarness in my fingers before and I've pushed them beyond the limit at like a million bpm (slight exageration :-)...Your comparison with working out makes alot of sence though. I'm sure there is some truth in that. I have a friend who expirienced the same thing but it turned out to Arthritis...lets hope its not. I think he got that from playing with his guitar hanging too low though. Anyway good luck.
-Garret

Eek! Arithritis... damn man how does he play guitar now?? I haven't been doing any exercise with the metronome for a long time... I guessmost people, if they are patient enough, just go up by 2 or 8's per session.

Well me off to play again~

Soreness and development of arthritis/carpel tunnel is usually due to not warming up properly.Its good you made the comparison of weight lifting.If you dont stretch right before lifting,you may pull a muscle and WILL be sore soon after.The original guitarist of Immortal supposedly lost his ability to play guitar(without pain)from not warming up before rehearsal sessions...it didnt help that he and the band lived in a freezing climate.At least run up and down the chromatic scale slowly increasing speed to warm up your hands and if possible,play somewhere warm...cold hands make even power chords a difficult task.I live in massachusetts so it gets freezing during the winter(so much for global warming!)My friends basement becomes an ice tomb...thats where we jam alot too.Cold leather jackets,chains,guitars,guitar strings,heartless solid state amps,metal chairs,snow inside sockless shoes,lack of personnel space,insane wind chill...and freezing hands=one lousy jam session.bbrrrrrr!!!
I'm moving to florida or Cali!

Later! \m/

If you just try alternately waving your fingers in the air (like rapping your fingers) can you feel a difference between your fretting and picking hands? My fretting hand feels smoother. I take it that that's down to hours of practice.
The worst hand ache I get is from practicing barre chords on a high action acoustic. 4 finger/string legato exercises with stretch fingerings used to kill me too. Now I rarely get any kind of hand ache because my fingers are very relaxed when I play and my guitar has a thin neck/low action.
Don't try playing somewhere really cold, you'll embarrass yourself! You may sound good but you'll know your performance is suffering. This is what I don't like about playing outside at beach bonfires.

Soreness = Bad

Gottacha.