Radial deviation ROM and wrist picking

Playing Technique
#1

I was at a barbecue yesterday where much of the crowd were musicians, and a few of us started nerding out about picking technique at one point. One guy, a great guitarist who uses mainly elbow technique, mentioned how he wanted to develop more wrist technique. I suppose I am of the “small mouse RDT” variety, and I started dramatically miming my motion in the air - one of the things I noticed when he tried to copy me was that his range of motion on the radial side was almost non-existent. So I actually tried moving his hand myself in an effort to get him to feel where his hand should be going, and… yeah, his wrist 100% locks just a little bit past the point of neutral when moving radially (ulnar had much more range of motion).

So this got me wondering if wrist motions that are closer to deviation/not super RDT work better for players who have greater ROM in general, and if the ROM is due entirely to anatomical reasons or if some sort of training could develop it.

1 Like
#2

Can you do a video of your range? I think this is a massive unaddressed issue, our different body constructions effect what we can play. Some things you just can’t train for unless you’re built a certin way.

1 Like
#3

Here it is, with some blabbing included.

1 Like
#4

14norq4vze781 (1)

look at eds thumb… I mean comon…

VeMKv3C7R9hfA3uYMT8239

449997616_1203482114440642_3437064013149547372_n
449997616_1203482114440642_3437064013149547372_n2048×1536 292 KB

If you think you can train past certin limitations then good luck…

1 Like
#5

Yeah no there is definitely something different about riff’s hand compared to mine. My right hand can’t go as far left as riffdiculous’s; but thats not a bad thing. I can pick just as fast as everyone else with different muscles lol.

#6

What about the left hand?

Hammer ons n pulloffs are very hard if your hand doesn’t have the angles of forces to do them well.

#7

strangely I am very very good at legato and left hand technique in general. Picking was always my weakness but I solved it. tapping is like super easy to me.

But I think left hand technique is not really impacted by this. Remember left hand movement is just as complicated; if not more than picking. Though I do think people get it more naturally.

Actually I’m honestly starting to think that Riff’s wrist in his video is slightly using some doorknock motion muscles; because when I do that my wrist can move further in like his does.

#8

Could be! It feels pretty much like pure deviation to me, though.

#9
1 Like
#10

I respond with the greatest song written about a cat, ever.

2 Likes
#11

I think Troy talks in the Primer about the difference in reach between ulnar and radial deviations and explains that the “true center” for many people’s range is at about 50% deviation towards the pinky. Thankfully, that kind of range limitation can be overcome with DT or RDT.

1 Like
#12

Wow just now getting to this in detail. My wrist does NOT do what yours does lol! When I go as far as possible towards the thumb, the “karate chop” side of my palm and my forearm forms a perfectly straight line.

#13

Yeah, your wrist is a superset of mine ad well!

#14

Very interesting! When you guys get to the end of your radial ROM, does it feel like tightness is preventing any further movement, or is it more like going further is simply impossible, like trying to bend sideways at the knee?

#15

For me somewhere between those 2 extremes but closer to the latter. It feels very unnatural to go further and if I knew nothing about all the stuff we nerd out about, I’d question why I’d want to invest anything in getting more ROM here lol!

1 Like
#16

If the pick is 12cm away from a wrist and the motion is 3cm, then the angle is something like 14 degrees, and that’s pretty small. So if the hand moves around (from the elbow or shoulder) to adjust for string changes then one might not necessarily need a lot of range. Does that seem right?

#17

Flip side: I have pretty good radial deviation ROM (45 degree angle between hand and wrist at max) and my “tall mouse” max trem speed seems barely faster than my small mouse speed. In fact, the differences in supination seem pretty small.

1 Like
#18

That is my experience as well, and is sort of what I’m driving at, that perhaps this increased radial deviation ROM allows for a more effective “small mouse RDT”. I don’t know why that would be, but there could be some anatomical reason behind it.

For sure, I’m just wondering if people who tend to have success with wrist picking motions that are closer to deviation rather than a very obvious diagonal RDT or DT all possess somewhat greater than normal ROM along that pathway. I don’t know why that would have any effect exactly, because as you point out nowhere near the full range of motion gets used, but there could be some correlation worth investigating.

#19

I think it’s at least plausible that that’s correlated with different muscle insertions.

1 Like
#20

58494e62d1e8ebfd418411c58a6b46ac

v3imagesbin90cc181b01365a845b8591c4e0a8d2d4-bockcq1nlq2ayoo65v2
v3imagesbin90cc181b01365a845b8591c4e0a8d2d4-bockcq1nlq2ayoo65v21024×768 128 KB

1 Like