Questions on strength and weight training

[JoeBeavis]

Hi,

I am new here as forum user but probably older than the majority. Wish i had CCC around when I started out.

1. Even with very small pick strokes and good technique it seems that at some point good old genetics give some people better results as far as overall speed. For example two humans with similar builds and training run a race and one beats the other just because of better genetics and more fast twitch muscles. Do people believe this comes into play with something like guitar picking?

2. As an athlete I would do weight training to gain strength. In wondering how this might apply to building forearm strength i devised and exercise i am using. I bought a 4 pound short handle sledge hammer.

I am right handed so i use right hand for this.

• exercise 1 i hold forearm parallel to ground with palm up hammer in hand with head of hammer pointing right. I then rotate forearm counter clockwise until hammer is vertical and slowly lower it.

• exercise 2 i hold forearm parallel to ground palm down hammer in hand with head of hammer pointed to the left. I then rotate forearm clockwise until head of hammer is vertical and then lower.

Depending on how close you hold handle of hammer to the head of it will vary the resistance. The farther away you hold handle from the head, the greater the resistance.

I thought of this because someone like Troy looks like he can fold frying pans with his bare hands. His forearms are probably bigger than my lower legs. At same time someone like Paul Gilbert has very slender arms yet he picks like Paul Gilbert. This also got me into thinking how much does the length of ones arms come into play with stuff like this but i will save for another post perhaps. Question here is ultimately do people feel like some strength training to build muscles associated with suppination and the other one is actually helpful or waste of time?

[PickingApprentice]

@JoeBeavis

Even with very small pick strokes and good technique it seems that at some point good old genetics give some people better results as far as overall speed. For example two humans with similar builds and training run a race and one beats the other just because of better genetics and more fast twitch muscles. Do people believe this comes into play with something like guitar picking?

Generally no, in my opinion. Maybe to some degree at the hyper-picking extremes

@JoeBeavis

I thought of this because someone like Troy looks like he can fold frying pans with his bare hands. His forearms are probably bigger than my lower legs. At same time someone like Paul Gilbert has very slender arms yet he picks like Paul Gilbert. This also got me into thinking how much does the length of ones arms come into play with stuff like this but i will save for another post perhaps. Question here is ultimately do people feel like some strength training to build muscles associated with suppination and the other one is actually helpful or waste of time?

Given the fact that there are examples of fat, thin, tall and small players that can pick at insane speeds, I would say that strength is not an issue.

@JoeBeavis

As an athlete I would do weight training to gain strength. In wondering how this might apply to building forearm strength i devised and exercise i am using. I bought a 4 pound short handle sledge hammer.

If you spend the time you would have spent with the hammer, practicing on your guitar - you will improve at a much better pace… unless you use a hammer to play guitar! or use a 4 pound pick!!

[Drew]

@JoeBeavis

Even with very small pick strokes and good technique it seems that at some point good old genetics give some people better results as far as overall speed. For example two humans with similar builds and training run a race and one beats the other just because of better genetics and more fast twitch muscles. Do people believe this comes into play with something like guitar picking?

So, I’m continually surprised how much my experience as a cyclist can be useful around here.

In general, I’d say genetics have very little to do with it, or at least you can get a LOT of the way there with technique and practice even if genetics can vary the last oh 5-10%.

On a bike, in that scenario, the single biggest predictor of who will win the race, if you put both riders on modern, well maintained road bikes (think of this as putting both guitarists on well set up guitars with even action) is your power-to-weight ratio, the amount of watts you can generate at a sustained basis, divided by your weight in KG. An untrained but healthy layperson can probably expect to hold 1.5 watts per KG at their functional threshold, as of my last FTP test I was around 3.6w/kg, and guys winning the Tour de France are going to be around/just north of 6.5w/kg at their one-hour functional threshold. What determines this ratio? Training and body weight, which is to say training and diet. The more you train the stronger your muscles get and the more power you can generate, and as you cut fat and lower your weight, the less mass those muscles have to push around. To a point, genetics has very little to do with it. Where it DOES start to matter are things that you can’t really improve much with training - for example, the reason Lance Armstrong was so dominant for so long wasn’t steroids (everyone was on them back then), it was the fact he had a freakishly high VO max and could simply process more oxygen into his bloodstream than many of his equivalently trained peers, allowing him to push his aerobic capacity to the point where most riders would be going anaerobic.

So, while I’m not sure how analogous this is to guitar, if we DO assume many of the factors that would impact the ability to run or bike a race also impact the ability to play fast, I’m going to argue that a lot of those factors that impact that hypothetical race are NOT genetic, and genetics only enters the picture at the margins, with equivalently fit athletes.

[Troy]

For example two humans with similar builds and training run a race and one beats the other just because of better genetics and more fast twitch muscles. Do people believe this comes into play with something like guitar picking?

As a former track team captain, I have seen firsthand (foot?) how these differences exist in running specifically. So I can only assume there are potentially similar differences in arm muscles that are used for guitar playing. It only makes sense. But we’d have to test people to know for sure.

However, what I think people are noticing is that if these differences exist, they just don’t matter as much. You don’t need special genetics to move 150bpm sixteenth notes. Probably everyone can play that speed. But only people who know the right hand motions can play complicated lines at that speed, like you find in bluegrass and jazz.

As far as we can tell, it’s mainly knowledge of the actual motions that makes the biggest impact.

[a_lieb]

Only thing I’d add is that one of the big findings of CtC is that making your movements small is not a big deal! Except possibly at some really extreme speeds, a much bigger deal is finding ways to simplify your movements so that your muscles and nervous system can handle the whole ballet of the thing, and that has very little to do with age. It’s much closer to golfing than track in that respect.

[JoeBeavis]

Wow these are great answers. Thanks guys for offering your thoughts.

The hammer sounds silly but as a notorious over thinking i look for things i can do to help the process. I do not use 4 pound pick or hammer to play for the record. Those comments cracked me up.

[Prlgmnr]

If you must practice picking with a hammer can I suggest:

[Acecrusher]

Actually a well known university professor named Pebber Brown does suggest doing a rotational exercise to enhance one’s ability to do forearm rotation. Not quite the same as your exercise. I don’t have the link anymore but it’s in YouTube. He’s one of the teachers who taught Buckethead how to play guitar.