Unhappy with my picking hand wrist

Technique Critique
#1

I’ve been trying to reevaluate my picking technique but what is stopping me is my wrist I think. It curves and it has flexion. I’m trying to figure out how I can get to a point where there is no flexion and I can start to make progress with more of a closed fist technique. Is there anyway I can correct this?

Some of it I think stems from the body shape of my guitar or maybe my arms are too long forcing my wrist to flex upward.

Here is the closed fist what I’m trying to go for but without the bent wrist

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#2

Also here is what my open fist picking hand looked like as well before

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#3

Any chance you could upload a video of you playing from different angles? When you mean “flex upward”, do you mean radial deviation? Flexion at the wrist would look like you pulling your palm towards the forearm, which from this angle is hard to see in your pictures (but I definitely see radial deviation, i.e. wrist bending towards your thumb).

#4

I did my best here with the video and getting angles of both techniques. I’m in the process of moving so my audio equipment is all packed away so sorry about the poor quality.
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#5

Thanks for the video, yeah so I’m guessing you’re referring to radial deviation (wrist bent towards the thumb). I have a similar guitar and pick with a pretty closed fist similar to your picture. What helps me is to play with a very high guitar strap, which allows your forearm to be more parallel to the strings, in turn allowing your wrist to be more in line with your forearm.

#6

Yeah I think I meant radial deviation thanks for clearing that up. I’ll try to see if playing guitar up higher helps this.

#7

I’ve been testing out playing the guitar up high but still getting this curved wrist. I’ll start out playing with downward pick slanting but then starts to shift to my pick being parallel to the strings because of the wrist curve.

#8

@BSPIESS any chance you could take a video?

#9

One thing that I can notice from your side view is that your elbow is very far behind the body of your guitar and so your wrist has to flex in order for the pick to be in line with the strings. I’m not sure how easy it’ll be for you to correct this because you mentioned that you think your arms are super long, but if you consciously bring your elbow forward in front of your guitar body (or at least in line with it) then I think you’ll get rid of that flexion. I play a hollow body and had some issues with wrist flexion and the moment I got rid of it my speed increased significantly. At the end of the day, you should do what feels comfortable for you, though.

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#10

@jwl028 that was gonna be my next suggestion, seeing if he could have his elbow farther forward to push the forearm more “in line” with the body.

#11

The only way I can kind of get my elbow a little more forward is to have my arm float freely over the guitar so it does’t actually rest on it. It feels a little awkward so maybe I just have to make do with long arms lol. I’ll try and see if this will work.

#12

Hey @BSPIESS, what problem are you trying to solve?

Your picking seems pretty great in the above video, smooth and relaxed. Are you feeling some kind of discomfort? Are there things that you would like to play and can’t? Do you get a tone you don’t like? Otherwise I don’t see any reason to change what you are doing!

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#13

I feel comfortable with my current and feel relaxed it’s just after a while with the wrist kind of curving upward makes my pick slowly shift from being in a downward pick slant to being parallel with the string causing resistance.

#14

Hi, did you have any luck fixing this? I have a similar issue. I have put many hours forcing my arm and hand not to do this through picking exercises and it still feels impossible.

#15

I have this exact same issue that’s driving me crazy.

#16

I’m in the same boat.