Tips for Preventing Guitar Injuries

Any activity that involves repetitive motions or staying in one position for a long period of time (all music making, basically) can put you at risk for an overuse injury.  Different instruments have different common issues.  The problems that most commonly plague guitarists are tendonitis, shoulder problems, and back and neck pain.  Here are some tips on how to develop a healthy technique and avoid injury.  

Find your posture and hand position organically rather than by imitating what you see

There are general guidelines for guitar posture that apply to all guitarists.  Photos, videos, and live demos are really useful for illustrating those techniques, but the ultimate guide to your technique needs to come from within.  Factors like height, arm length, torso length make a big difference in how the guitar sits with your body.  How your posture and hand position feels tells you more than how it looks in comparison with other players. 

Instead of trying to copy the wrist angle or arm position of your teacher or other experienced player, go through these steps to find the right position for you (acoustic guitarists):

1. Find the appropriate sitting posture for your genre.  For nylon string guitars, that usually means sitting upright in a chair with no arms, with one foot on the floor and the other leg (on which the guitar rests) elevated by a footstool.  Some players find that using a guitar support is more comfortable than a footstool, as it allows both feet to be squarely on the ground.  

2. Find stability in how you position your guitar.  The guitar should have three contact points with the body: the leg (left or right depending on the style), the chest, and the right arm (forearm or upper arm, depending on your body).  Most of the stability should come from contact with the leg and chest.  The right arm is there as a final touch to hold the guitar in place, but it should be loose and free to slide along the top side of the guitar.  If you feel like you have to squeeze the guitar with your right arm to hold it in place, you haven’t found a good position yet. 

3. To position your left arm, first drop it by your side and relax completely.  Then, hook your left hand fingers over the fretboard.  Keep your arm so relaxed that if someone came up and pushed your elbow, it would swing back and forth rather than resisting.  That’s how relaxed your arm should be when you play.  Once you’ve found that left arm relaxation, you can position your left hand fingers over the frets.  

4. To position your right arm, stabilize the guitar with the left hand on the neck, and drop your right arm.  Let it relax and feel heavy.  Then, without tensing any part of it, drape it over the top of the guitar to where your right hand falls over the strings, right behind the sound hole.  It’s important to go through all these steps with your right arm relaxed, and notice how your right hand naturally falls.  Usually there is a slight bend to the right wrist, but it shouldn’t be a dramatic one. 

Warm up before you play

Your teacher can guide you in your first warm-up routine, and as you develop as a player you’ll probably adapt it to what works best for you. 

Here are some tips from Lessonface’s Youtube channel: 

See-saw Exercise with Mike Mitchell

Warm-up Exercises with Duane Denison

Daily Stretch Routine for Guitarists

I love doing flamenco rasgueos (strumming using individual right hand fingers) to warm up my right hand, and I recommend them for any nylon-string guitarist.  I also include slow, mindful arpeggios and ligados for the right hand.  If I have time, I play more exercises that use the fundamental right-hand flamenco techniques (picado, thumb, alzapua, and tremolo).  Rasgueos, arpeggios, and ligados are my go-tos if I’m in a hurry. 

Practice in front of a mirror and record yourself playing

Even though how you feel is the ultimate deciding factor, watching yourself play can help you notice posture or positioning peculiarities before they cause issues.  You can notice things like a slouched back, bent wrist, or sticking your left elbow out to the side and fix them before they cause discomfort 

When you watch a video of your playing, you can notice all sorts of things that you weren’t aware of in the act of playing.  For example, maybe your right-hand pinky sticks out when you play arpeggios, which means that you’re tenser than you need to be.   Perhaps your left hand fingers fly away from the fingerboard even though you thought you’d improved on that issue. 

Recording yourself playing is excellent for musical reasons as well as physical reasons.  

Never play through pain

The only exception to this, ever, is that when you first start playing guitar, or after a break, your left hand fingertips may be sore from pressing down the strings.  

Be very attentive to even the smallest twinge or odd sensation in the fingers, wrists, arms, and shoulders.  Also pay attention to your neck and back.

If you feel any discomfort, see if you can pinpoint why and modify your posture or hand position.  

If that doesn’t help, take a break and come back to playing in ten or fifteen minutes.  If discomfort continues, just stop for the day and make a note to ask your teacher for advice next lesson.  No amount of musical advancement that you could possibly accomplish in a given day is worth injuring yourself for.

Get professional help if a problem persists

Guitar teachers aren’t medical professionals.  We can advise on proper playing technique, relaxation, and efficiency of movement.  But some issues are beyond our expertise.

If you feel like you have a hard time relaxing with your instrument in spite of good instruction and conscious effort, you might consider researching the Alexander Technique and booking a few sessions with an instructor.  The Alexander Technique is used by actors, athletes, and musicians to retrain habitual movements and postures and to build healthy technique based on relaxation and efficiency.  Here’s a bit more on the subject by Lessonface teacher Ray Parker.

If you develop a serious issue such as tendonitis, you’ll probably need to seek medical help to solve it.  Unfortunately, solving it usually involves taking some time off playing.  It’s important to follow the professional advice you receive and rest for the entire period.  The sooner you solve the issue, the sooner you can get back to playing.  

Exercise and take care of yourself in general

This might go without saying, but taking care of yourself in general goes a long way in preventing injuries on any instrument.  Certain kinds of exercise complement guitar playing particularly well, as they strengthen the parts of your body that we use most.  Having a strong and capable upper body helps you find a relaxed playing position, so nearly any activity that targets that area will be helpful.  Yoga’s terrific for all musicians, because it teaches us to pay attention to our breathing and alignment. Here’s a yoga for musicians class that I ran across recently.  But if yoga and sports that target the upper body aren’t your thing, any sort of physical activity is helpful.

Hope this is useful!  

What tips do other guitarists have on preventing injuries and developing healthy technique?  Have you overcome tendonitis or another guitar-related problem?  What helped you?