Exercising the forearm: strength and endurance

[celticqt]

Do any of you use those squeeze-things (basically two handles with a spring in between them -- sorry, I don't know the right name) that are meant to strengthen the arm and hand?  My arm gets so sore and fatigued when I play certain pieces that I literally ache afterwards.  Some of this is due to tension, I'm sure; but I wonder if exercising these muscles independent of the piano would help.

Thanks!

[xvimbi]

First, your problems are entirely due to tension, not just some of it. Second, you are probably talking about Gripmasters. Yes, they do help strengthen muscles in the forearm. If you choose to use them (they come in different strengths - start with the easiest), keep in mind that they only exercise the muscles involved in gripping. Although one could argue that those are the important ones for playing the piano, there is an underlyig trap. Many pianists have observed that after a few years, when they let their arms hang down in a relaxed manner, their fingers are much more curled than before. This is a consequence of the "gripping muscles" being much tighter than the antagonistic muscles. As a consequence, the new "relaxed" state is now out of balance, which can lead to all kinds of problems in tendons and joints as well as in the muscles (very common in body builders). Bottom line, if you do those exercises, make sure you exercise the antagonistic muscles at the same time. That is a general principle and applies to any kind of strengthening exercise.

IMO, you should just forget about any strength training for piano playing and rather focus on improving your coordination in order to minimize any tension, so that these problems don't arise in the first place. In other words, building up strength in order to overcome what is primarily lack of coordination is not the right thing to do.

Of course, you can do strength training for other purposes, but it's not really necessary for piano playing.

Search the forum for "strength" and you'll find a lot more discussions about this topic.

Hope that helps.

[celticqt]

Wow . . . Thank you! You saved me a trip to the store - I was all set to rush out and buy some.  However, I went back and searched "strength" and "co-contraction of muscles" and found some helpful advice from both you and Bernhard.  I've been sitting here moving my left arm in a circle for about five minutes - now I need to translate this motion into the 3rd movement of the moonlight sonata.

So building upper-body strength would be more beneficial in the long run.  Hmmm.  Maybe I should take up kung-fu.  

[zheer]

The only thing i can suggest to you is to rest during and after piano playing.Relax the arm ,wrist,hand and play only with the finger tips, avoid all finger strengthining method.Avoid repetition through resting every 15 minutes. Try Deepheat Rub on the effected area for pain relief and play the piano when you are 100% pain free.This is possible.Zheer.
     
   

[fra ungdomsdagene]

My arm gets so sore and fatigued when I play certain pieces that I literally ache afterwards.  Some of this is due to tension, I'm sure; but I wonder if exercising these muscles independent of the piano would help.

Thanks!

As xvimbi has already said, your fatigue and ache is enterely due to tension.
The reason why you feel so aching and fatigues is that you "accumulate tension" and the longer you play the more tension is accumulated and to this tension-plus-accumulated-tension more tension is added as you play until you're in pain and unable to play anymore. Also, while resting your arms, wrist and hands is a good idea, if you rest them before and after the piece it won't do the trick as no matter how tension free you are when you start playing the piece you will accumulate tension as you play and no matter how tension free you re after you've played, accumulated tension has already done lot of harm.
My suggestion is to stop playing your pieces and practice them in small chunks.
It doesn't matter if your already know the piece and can play it, you would not be practicing the piece but tension free playing.
If accumulated tension is the problem the solution is to free your arms, wrist and hands from tension before it can be accumulated. So you choose a chunk that you can play without accumulating tension (for example half a bar) and divide the whole place in chunks of half a bar.
What you do is to play your chunk and as soon as you stop on the last note of the chunk  (which should be the first note of the next chunk) you relax the arm, wrist and hand by sending the tension back to the torso and resting the hand on your lap while you practice the next chunk mentally. When you're ready and tension free you play the next chunk and so on and on. If the piece is practiced in this way when you play the whole piece you will retain those moments of tension release by sending the tension back to the torso as you play and you will never feel fatigue even if you repeat the piece 20 times in a row.
Just my two cents but tension accumulation has been a big problem for me and this system works.

Fra