Piano Forum

"The same principle applies is the following: people with arterial disease gets cramps in their legs when walking uphill/upstairs - one of the conservative management of such a patient is to go through 'supervised exercise' so that they are encouraged to walk and push through that 'ache' barrier. Of course, not overdoing it (hence the supervised), but what this whole process does is to build up tolerance in the muscles for the strenuous activity and also help build collateral blood vessels to deal with the extra oxygen demand the muscles are crying out for. If practising hours everyday to the point of aching in the arms, perhaps there is a similar effect to this.

So I feel, no harm as long as you don't overdo it and you don't have a habit of tensing up as a response. Interesting to hear others' views on this too"

I think about eating with chopsticks. When I was first learning, I dropped everything, of course. But worse than that, my hands would get all tight and cramped and painful within a minute of picking them up. As I got better at using them, the cramping and pain went away. But it wasn't because the muscles got stronger, it was because I stopped using them inefficiently and just relaxed. Now I could chopstick peanuts from one jar to another for hours on end without any lactic acid buildup in my hands.

I think that to a great extent when you "practice through the ache" and finally can play the long, fast passage comfortably it is not that you've developed strength or endurance in your muscles, but that you've learned, consciously or unconsciously, to make more efficient, relaxed movements.