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Piano Street Magazine:
A New Kind of Piano Competition

Do piano competitions offer a good, fair, and attractive basis for a complete pianist and musician? In today’s scene, many competition organizers have started including additional elements for judging with a focus on preparing the competitor for a real, multifaceted musical life that reaches beyond prize money and temporary fame. Ralf Gothóni, the creator of a new kind of piano competition in Shanghai, shares his insights with us. Read more

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Topic: Shoulder injury,wrong advice from physiotherapist? will it hinder playing? (Read 2182 times)

qwerty quaver

PS Silver Member
Jr. Member
Posts: 59

Shoulder injury,wrong advice from physiotherapist? will it hinder playing?

on: April 24, 2006, 09:51:32 PM

HI!

I dislocated my shoulder in December and have been doing physiotherapy ever since. This involves doing weights: I started from 1.5kg and now my physiotherapist makes me do 5 kg on the machines (being a girl and slender it is really heavy for me and I need help from him to actually move the blasted things).
He also made me use a Powerball Gyroscope which is not really for my shoulder but he said it would help me in my piano playing (he is a fairly advanced pianist as well).

I was wondering if these methods really help for pianists... (and if any of you have any experience in the recovery for shoulder dislocations) since I have not found any (drastic) improvement in my technique, stamina or whatever.

Any ideas?

QQ

PS: this article is in reference to Topic: lifting weights at the gym and my piano ability by shoshin

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There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
- Johann Sebastian Bach

pianistimo

PS Silver Member
Sr. Member
Posts: 12142

Re: Shoulder injury,wrong advice from physiotherapist? will it hinder playing?

Reply #1 on: April 25, 2006, 01:33:11 AM

i wonder if the help is more in 'rebalancing' yourself. you know. your center of gravity. often, after an injury, we tend to compensate without noticing until the injured side is much better. this puts us off balance. maybe he's helping you balance your body better, which should help piano playing immensely in that you can relax your muscles from the neck on down faster. when you exercise you practice relaxation and tenseness. you can distinguish the tenseness faster. also, you can tell when one shoulder is higher than the other by the exercises and mirrors.

i have been working my leg a lot too to get the same function back that i had before. it doesn't bother my pedalling per se as much as it bothers my sense of balance on the bench. i've been practicing pulling in my stomach, which makes the lower back up to the neck straighter, and then putting my shoulders back, and then rotating the neck just a bit. then relax and hopefully after awhile it will 'fall into place' naturally. (although it seems that you have to have A LOT of muscles in your lower back to keep the whole back in place for long hours of practice). accurate bench height also helps.