Have any of you noticed any benefits to your guitar playing from exercise, particularly weightlifting?
I’ve noticed a lot of players like John Taylor and John Petrucci are into lifting and swear by it. Is there any evidence it might benefit guitar playing?
I think the main thing would just be the overall health benefits. After all, guitar IS a physical activity
other than that, lifters generally have at least SOME idea of how to logically set up routines and plans etc. To me, this is where the actual rubber hits the road. Knowing pick angles is great for what it is but in itself it doesnt guarantee anything. We still have to cross the barrier of getting those movements grooved into the fingers. Exerienced lifters at least have SOME idea of how to plan etc
I rededicated myself to mastering guitar about a month ago. Well I was already constantly playing for years so really it just means I am trying to be WAY more focused and methodical now. So I started keeping a brief daily diary. Nothing fancy, mainly showing the amount of time I practice and in general what I was working on.
So, looking back, I added up my total time practicing for each of the last 3 weeks. 15.3, 14.6, 15.9 hours
So 15ish hours/week looks like a natural sort of baseline for me if im practicing “a lot”.
So how do I use that going forward. Easy, I do what I know works for the human body. I do what I did when I was powerlifting. 3 hard weeks, 1 easy week. repeat over and over
for example:
and the below may seem like goobledygook but its a Russian program and i used to use a “beginner” version of it. But you see the same basic principle: they build for several weeks then they deload or take an easy week etc. The linked program is for a world class lifter so there are 4 very difficult weeks then the 5th week comes down somewhat then the 6th week is super easy since its the week before a competition
https://web.archive.org/web/20050406230129/http://www.zyworld.com/powerlifting/benchsheiko.htm
in any case I think this is just based on the principles of human adaptation. You stimulate, you rest, you grow. An advanced lifter cant look at it on a workout to workout basis, they have to back up and look at a bigger picture.
So this will be my method going forward. 3 weeks where I push the training hard and then 1 week to let the body “catch up” and adapt and recover. repeat over and over
if 15 hours is sort of a baseline, then my “deload” weeks will be around 60% of that. Though I havent calculated it and planned each day out, I have a feeling that I will come in around 9-10 hours this week lol
Its interesting too. I had recently started going back to the gym. Nothing fancy, just basic stuff 1x per week but thats on top of a full time job and im not exactly a spring chicken anymore.
Now add 15 hrs per week of pretty focused guitar practice. I had decided to chill on the 4th week and guess what happened? Boom, I get hit with pretty solid cold/flu symptoms. A lot of lifters will start to get a cold or other mild sickness when they are overtrained. Is that what happened to me? Who knows but it makes sense. I work in a warehouse environment so its hot/cold all at the same time and weather has been crazy, going back n forth hot/cold.
Claus Levin talks about some of the same ideas of practicing until you hit a rut and then u switch to other methods. But what happens when you seem to stall on all your methods? Take a break then start over etc. He mentions that for instance if you do 12 hours of practice on day, you wont wake up the next day and see the results lol. The results take time to show
So this is my exact experience in powerlifting etc. You dont see the results so much while you are in the middle of the intense training. The results wont actually show until you back off the training and let the body supercompensate etc.
So Claus is sort of saying the same thing and IMO he is exactly correct. But rather than work into staleness and a rut id rather just do the “3 hard weeks, 1 easier week” structure. That way you take some of the guesswork out. You dont have to ask “am I doing too much?” because you probably WILL be doing too much lol…for those 3 weeks anyway. But the 4th week is taken for recovery etc
Good health pays dividends in everything. Running and high impact activities are damaging to the body and difficult to keep up as you age. Weight lifting maintains muscle mass and hormonal balance.
Its not going to make you a better guitarist, especially if you spend hours in the gym when you could be practicing. But it will help you be a better person overall.
Vince Gironda knew this stuff back in the 60s lol
“Train 21 days, rest 7”
You certainly wouldn’t know from looking at me but in another life I was really dedicated to weightlifting/bodybuilding (you wouldn’t know from looking at me then either - I was never very good at it!)
You have to be really careful about not overloading your joints/wrists, etc. I wouldn’t say I regret being into weightlifting but I know have a lot of problems in my wrists, hands, back, knees, even though I was trying very hard to use good form and lift responsibly and everything. I was just young probably not careful enough.
Certainly curious what @Troy has to say, he’s been looking jacked!
I’ve put the weight training on the back burner for a while, but now my youngest kid has turned 4 I should be getting back in to it (just couldn’t make those 6am lifting sessions with a kid not sleeping through the night).
Did stronglifts 5x5, replaced that with Starting Strength when I found out that was basically the original source, then did 5/3/1 for a couple of years, worked up to some decent enough but not earth shattering weights.
None of it has any bearing on guitar as far as I’m concerned, beyond the applicability of the general turn-up-and-do-the-thing attitude you need to have to get anywhere.
edit: Potentially weightlifing as in the sport of Olympic Weightlifting could have more relevance as it is more skill/technique based as opposed to strength training which is almost purely focused on strength.
I don’t think it’ll have much of a direct impact on your playing.
But indirect? Yes, potentially.
When I was in college, I struggled quite a bit with wrist tendonitis. As soon as I started taking up lifting, my issues stopped. I’ll emphasize that this is only a sample size of one, and there are plenty of stories where weightlifting caused or exacerbated an injury. But it certainly helped me continue to play.
It’s interesting to note that back when the Soviets were dominating the competitive chess landscape, they had all their trainees do some moderate physical exercise as part of their regimen. The mind/body connection is real, and I don’t doubt that anyone who spends a significant portion of their day sitting (as guitarists tend to do) would benefit from counteracting that with some physical training.
Some good discussion re: motor learning and athletic training here as well, including thoughts from @Troy and @milehighshred on the topic:
I haven’t done any exercise in years. It’s all domesticity fat now. Aiming to change that in the spring. As we all get older, you can’t take good lipid values for granted any more.
But you are correct, I ran track in HS and lifted regularly for years. If you’re asking me, I wouldn’t do anything aggressive weight-wise at all. No PR squats or deadlifts. I’m not really into killing myself in a gym - it just burns me out and makes me not want to go. And I’m definitely not interested in injury. My mantra is minimum effort, maximum regularity. For regular folk who want to be / look generally fit, almost any kind of medium-intensity or better exercise done with regularity will produce amazing results.
I wish i could find this old early 80s TV clip back when PacMan and Asteroids were ruling the roost and people started worrying about kids spending too much time in arcades. This one big fat kid showed them his forearm (from playing asteroids) and he said “look at that muscle”!!
Great responses everyone.
Yeah I suspected there’s no real correlation. I remember years ago when everyone on Ultimate Guitar was insisting Petrucci fell off a bit because he got too jacked. I think the more likely explanation is just a lack of practice and getting a bit older.
I believe regular exercise should be a top priority for musicians. Weight training can assist with muscle-mind awareness and might actually be another learning tool for those guitarists who have trouble understanding how they carry tension or how their posture might affect their playing. Cardio can help with blood flow and might alleviate soreness, too.
well one can only “major” on so many things at once. Since I started playing guitar 31 years ago ive also done competitive powerlifitng and also chess tournaments. Chess was way worse since it gets to be a 24/7 thing.
That being said, “exercise” is obviously a plus for anyone. But if it takes over then thats a different matter. The only thing that would even remotely worry me as far as weights interfering with guitar, would be stuff that places too much strain on the hands/fingers. When I used to do heavy deadlifts it was pretty taxing on the fingers and hands. And obviously if u do some crazy forearm/pump workout then you wont be playing much guitar for the next few hours lol
other than that, too many benefits to mention.
More fodder for this thread:
I don’t have links handy, but there is a lot of research evidence saying that at least for kids, physical activity correlates positively with cognitive development.
On the topic of variety versus specialization, the below article has some interesting thoughts on possible negative effects of over-specialization in the athletic training of kids:
the Soviets used to write a lot on this subject. they were absolutely against over specialization in youth athletes. Even in older athletes the Soviets generally had them do work in other sports. for instance the volleyball players might also play soccer for recovery etc. I think the wrestlers used basketball as their 2nd sport
there was the famous Olympic story where a team was warming up early one morning playing soccer and the bystanders starting remarking how awesome they looked. Everyone was like “what team is this??” Someone said “the Soviet team…the Soviet VOLLEYBALL team”. Then later that day the Soviets beat the Americans in volleyball. of course the Americans were still in bed while the Soviets were out that morning playing soccer. cest la vie
in any case the specialization thing is valid. If we are specializing on guitar then that is where our energy and focus will go. if we also try to focus too much on other things, then we limit how far we can go on guitar etc.
That being said, 2-3 good workouts per week is probably ideal just to break away from the monotony of guitar practice etc
I can’t comment on this - I’m getting fatter ea h week!
George Lynch got heavily into weight training for several years. He said that it made his forearms prone to cramps when he had to play solos. Anything challenging like playing Mr. Scary would make his forearms start to cramp just a minute or less into it so he gave up the weights.
In high school and college I trained with weights and never had that problem. Maybe it varies from person to person or maybe it’s because Lynch got as big as he did. There may be a limit at which gaining more muscle will predispose you to getting muscle cramps while playing guitar.
If there’s any benefit to it, it’s that weight training, at least for me, built a strong sense of discipline, so practicing “enough” was never a problem.
Check out RICK GRAHAM’s web site for a video on his Journey from FAT to RIPPED after getting into lifting. I don’t think it negatively affected his playing. http://www.rick-graham.co.uk/rgfitness.html
Getting in that kind of shape is considerably easier than learning to play like Rick Graham.
I think Paul Gilbert is hard evidence that you don’t need to lift weights to be able to shred. 