Fast metal downpicking and galops | Training routine

Technique Critique
#1

Hi all,

I´m new here and feel slightly overwhelmed after watching many videos.

I judge myself as total beginner with very little orientation how to learn. After 8 years of pause I started playing again in march 2020 and I got somehow attached to this goal of being able to play Brandon Smalls - Beastblade at the original speed of 120bpm soon.

This is me trying Iced Earth - Stormrider

This is my tremolo on 2 strings

I´m using Dunlop 1,5mm or the Jazz III XL (1.34mm)

Problem:

  • My Shoulder gets very tense and tired when I play fast and I get a lot slower after 2-4 bars.
  • I was diagnost with an shoulder impingement syndrom. I do exercises for the outer rotator muscles

Questions:

  • How do I become faster and get more stamina?

  • Is it like lifting weights, where I want my muscle to grow by exercising until muscle failure? Many short and fast bursts with a lot pf pause or constent muscle tension for 90sec - 3min till full exhaustion?

  • Do I need rest periods and when do I stop playing?

I´m grateful for every suggestion!

1 Like
#2

With regards to your shoulder, do you play with the body “flat” on your abdomen, or at an angle?

Also, it looks like you’re gripping too hard! And maybe picking too hard…

#3

@Pepekick66 Thank you! No, my guitar contacts my body on the leg and leans at my rip cage. It´s tilted ~15 degree. Should it be 90 toward the ceiling and in full contact with my abdomen?

1 Like
#4

No that’s good (IMO). The reason I ask if I’ve seen people put their shoulder in an uncomfortable “stressed” position because they have the guitar flat on their body.

#5

Posting an Iced Earth song right now, haha, great timing. :grinning:

But seriously: my right shoulder has impingement problems for years now, to be precise, since I maxed out on negative pull ups with poor form multiple days in a row.
I can’t play painless with the guitar sitting on my right leg (right handed). But when I place it in the “classical” position, all pain is practically gone. By “classical position” I mean: the guitar rests on the left leg (like playing a V-shape). The left leg is elevated by a stack of books.

#6

Impingement:
While my doctor said I have to stop boxing this device allowed me to do it 3 more years!
I started doing this again and I imagine it helps me again :wink: