Your experience - weightlifting/exercise and guitar

General Music Discussion
#11

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.

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#12

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.

#13

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:

#14

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

#15

I can’t comment on this - I’m getting fatter ea h week!

#16

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.

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#17

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

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#18

Getting in that kind of shape is considerably easier than learning to play like Rick Graham.

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#19

@ChrisX

True dat!!!

#20

I think Paul Gilbert is hard evidence that you don’t need to lift weights to be able to shred. :wink:

#21

Agreed. by the looks of Paul, evidence is that you don’t even need to eat!

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#22

some of the pics of Paul with the tiny arms and tank tops were pretty cringeworty…but it looks like for some brief period he was actually working out lol

super classic ectomorph

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#23

To be fair, he’s surprisingly tall, which might make him look thinner than he is.

I met him and Billy Sheehan after a Mr. Big show in the early 90’s. Based on photos at the time, I assumed Billy was really tall and Paul wasn’t. When I met them, it was the opposite.

#24

This is a VERY interesting topic to me personally… I’ve been a Strength and conditioning coach for the last ~12 years. And have competed at the national level in powerlifting. I started playing guitar when I was 18 since I didn’t like my roommates… Interestingly enough, MANY of the elite level athletes (not just average or slightly above average athletes) were involved in some sort of musical endeavor at some point during their development. I think there is a direct correlation between early music and athletic correlation but don’t have any specific data.

That being said being the nerd that I am in both strength and conditioning and guitar, I have noticed that the more consistent I am in training, the more relaxed and focused I feel practicing guitar. Since the 3 phases of lifting weights take place in different parts of the brain, there has to be some crossover. Whether it is in technical/mechanical processing or the ability to of the nervous system to better coordinate global/fine motor skills, there is definitely some carryover. Granted, I wouldn’t recommend anyone putting themselves through the stupidity that I did, but there seems to be benefit to training and its carryover to practice.
I have noticed that when/if I am deadlifting heavy, I have noticed it takes me longer to warm up my fingers when playing guitar. I also think there is a correlation between complex movements in the weight room and coordinative (is that a word?!) ability completing fine motor tasks. Again, no data on this just my empirical observation with myself and some of the high level athletes I have been blessed to interact with.

I do think that it takes more focus to stay relaxed playing guitar when you are lifting heavy as I can remember playing guitar when I was competing regularly and gripping the guitar like I was trying to choke it… If anyone is super interested in this, I’d be happy to try to sift through the mountains of “stuff” I have and see if I can come up with anything. I’ve got a bunch of really old translated russian manuals from the 60’s and 70’s. What I can say is that Americans have sport training and physical preparation pretty wrong! Hopefully someone got some use out of these ramblings…

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#25

haha, ive got manuals from Medvedev, verkoshansky, Roman, and the one that was sort of hard to get (maybe not now though) the big manual from Vorobyev. Good stuff, though I havent lifted regularly for several years

#26

Interesting topic that I’m late to - showed up in my forum summary email. I was an avid Crossfitter for the past 6 or 7 years - and when I decided to pick my guitar back up again a bit over a year ago - I was able to correlate a negative impact to my guitar playing. Crossfit can be really grip intensive - I mean - really grip intensive. I found that I could feel impact from that for several days. Just a slow down and impact to overall dexterity. Chatted about it with another guy at the gym who is a classical guitarist and he said he noticed the same thing. I’ve been out for several months now - longest break ever but my old man back has about had enough- unfortunately :cry:

#27

Why not? Was it negatively impacting your guitar playing?

#28

work etc and a bad case of pfl (pure freaking laziness). Been back at it a bit for about 5 weeks though. Doubt ill ever be a serious lifter again though. Not enough time or focus

#29

I quit because of chronic tendonitis in my front and medial deltoids. I would quit for months at a time, or even a year to heal, and when I began again I’d feel fine for 4 to 6 weeks. I’d start very slowly but as soon as I got past about 6 weeks, it always came back!

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#30

yeah my delts are bothering me now, hope it passes