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