Hi all, is there a collection of the anatomical name for primary muscles engaged (or where you feel the stress/power coming from) for various motion mechanics on this forum?
I tend to utilize elbow mechanics at higher speeds and the stress/motion engagement seems to be coming from the brachioradialis muscle
Image Source:https://www.kingofthegym.com/brachioradialis/
Hey @jmath90,
This is an interesting question because the information as it stands isn’t really conclusive on all the different muscle chains used for the elbow motion you employ.
For forearm motion, Troy did this article for Guitar World. It’s on Yngwie’s technique. You can also check the Pickslanting Primer and then the Volcano Seminar, in which Troy dives into elbow, forearm, and finger mechanics:
In the case of John Taylor who @Troy has interviewed, the “hyperpicking” motion he does is described as a “jiggle.” When John does it, he gets this massive brachioradialis flex that you can see on camera. The theory as it stands now is that John is moving the pick so fast he has to provide a certain amount of force or control to get it across the strings. See here:
Troy also floated an idea that there might be different muscle chains for activating the elbow. See this clip:
If you look at Troy’s mechanic above, there is a certain amount of flex in the brachioradalis area; this could be explained away, however, by playing at such a high speed from a dead stop. The muscles essentially go from slack to taking on a massive amount of work in next to no time at all. Here is Troy’s explanation for this:
In my own experience, 220-230 is where I start failing, or losing a little bit of the beat, in my performance of alternate picking sequences. The mechanics I use to play all of my picking - tremolo, 3NPS, etc. - seem to switch over after 200-220 BPM 16th notes:
If I recall correctly, It took me about 1 hour of practicing only this pattern nearly every day for 3 months straight to get it this reliable or convincing at such a high tempo, and it’s still not perfect. I did it so much I can’t even remember what the sensation was, and this was nearly two years ago. I distinctly remember there being no tension, and it seemed like there was a switchover to the elbow from usual forearm blend. Similar to Troy I don’t think my brachioradialis was engaged for this. It just seemed like the forearm rotation and the muscles described in the Guitar World article started failing me, and the elbow started stepping in.
I did this experiment in response to a post Troy made a ways back:
This post was September 2017. If you scroll down in the above thread, you’ll notice the short anecdote about the engineer who noted most death metal guitarists start failing around 220 16th notes. Is the some sort of elbow mechanic changeover/muscle chain activation they are missing that causes this failure? Or is it a lack of practice? I think Troy is on the money for there being some sort of mechanical activation/mental changeover. For me It seemed passive in terms of activation, as if the body knows what to do. Hyperpicking is something else.
In general I would agree with Troy that there is a difference between these two modes (hyperpicking with brachioradialis, and some form of mystery muscle elbow), but neither of us, or anyone in the community as of now for that matter, seems to explain exactly where the switchover is, what muscles are used, and how exactly to think to activate them.
It’s this level of detail and sophistication and mechanics that deepens everything Cracking the Code has discovered every year. Just when you think you have an answer, something comes up. We saw it with the outdated two-way-pickslanting and wrist mechanics from Andy Wood, and we’re seeing it again here. Interesting stuff.
Thanks guitarenthusast for the detailed explanation. I believe you are correct. In the real world, most of the motions that we do involves a ‘web or chain of muscles’ being triggered /recruited to get the body moving. With all these picking motion, I do believe that the lines are blurred even when we say stuff like its wrist, forearm, elbow etc… as probably no muscle would be purely working in isolation.
With regards to elbow motion, I also feel it coming from the biceps (maybe shoulders too ) which is not surprising to me as as this motion seems similar to a hammer curl. I feel the most comfortable on an acoustic where my biceps sometimes rest on the lower bout of the guitar. I find it harder to play fast on an electric (strat) as i don’t get that bigger lower bout to rest.
I’m not sure if its a good analogy but there’s the concept of mind-muscle connection when it comes to weight-training.
Taking the bench press as an example, when I started initially I was just moving the weight from point A to B and not ‘feeling’ it in the pecs. Most of the ‘tension/stress’ in moving the weight was coming from the anterior delts and triceps (which is expected in push movements). The difficult part here was to get the bench-press form correct and ‘feel’ the chest contracting. After some practice, working on my form and using other accessory exercises , I have a better ‘mind-muscle’ connection now than when I first started. The pec-bounce is a good example of mind-muscle connection.
I’m not sure if this translates well into picking motion. Do seasoned players ‘feel’ the motion in similar ways?? Or maybe they don’t think too much and they just do it…Not sure…
Additionally, when I get the time, I might throw in a video clip of me playing for analysis. For all know I might doing something totally different to what I’m saying here…
