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Topic: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help  (Read 2169 times)

Offline ajlongspiano

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(AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
on: July 17, 2016, 09:54:51 PM
   So over the past week or so, I was experiencing some fatigue throughout my arm from practicing 8-12 hours a day persistently. I took it easy for a few days, and it was feeling much better. However, yesterday I went to a friend's party, and she wanted me to play for her family since she has a baby grand in her house. She has a sister who plays and is fairly short, so the bench is much higher than I'm used to (unadjustable as well). Playing like that ended up cutting off all the power from my shoulders and biceps, forcing me to play completely from my forearms and wrists. Today I've really been in some pain (not touching the piano today at all, and I've been icing my arm every hour or so). Are there any methods you guys can recommend that will help me recover quickly and efficiently? Also, please feel free to recommend exercises that I use every morning to warm up my whole physical mechanism for playing, so that I don't injure myself again. This is miserable...

Best,

AJ

Offline chopinlover01

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #1 on: July 17, 2016, 11:31:45 PM
Alternate ice and heat.
No heavy lifting.
That's all I've got. Sorry!

Offline ajlongspiano

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #2 on: July 17, 2016, 11:40:21 PM
It all helps. Thanks dude!

Best,

AJ

Offline pianiststrongbad

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #3 on: July 18, 2016, 04:11:24 AM
In my opinion nothing productive happens beyond practicing 4 hours per day. I think people are more prone to injury when they practice for extended periods of time even if they are free of tension when playing.

Try taking a week off piano. If you are still in pain after the week, see a doctor.

Offline ajlongspiano

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #4 on: July 18, 2016, 04:14:44 AM
Hi pianiststrongbad,

    Thanks for your input. For me, many many hours a day of practice aids my development. This is because I'm still relatively a beginner in comparison to my other colleagues here (I haven't been playing long). I'll definitely be taking a break for a bit. Thanks again!

Best,

AJ

Offline pianiststrongbad

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #5 on: July 18, 2016, 04:33:12 AM
Hi pianiststrongbad,

    Thanks for your input. For me, many many hours a day of practice aids my development. This is because I'm still relatively a beginner in comparison to my other colleagues here (I haven't been playing long). I'll definitely be taking a break for a bit. Thanks again!

Best,

AJ

If you must regularly practice more than 4 hours per day, then I have a few recommendations:
- Take a 5 minute break every hour. This is the same advice a doctor makes to someone who works in an office every day. Sitting in a chair for extended periods is not healthy for the body.
- Make sure you do not feel any tension in your hands or arms. Tension is the enemy of piano playing and leads to injury.
- Try to build a practice schedule and document what you practice. For example, indicate how much time you spent trying to get a particular passage up to tempo. Write down how much time you spend trying to memorize a particular passage.
- Don't practice physically taxing passages (glissandi, or extended octave passages) for longer than 20 minutes at a time.

Several years ago I would occasionally practice more than 4 hours per day - I found that beyond that time there was diminishing returns. Sure I could still sit at the piano comfortably and play through pieces, but at that point I was merely playing pieces and not really "practicing" anything as my concentration had diminished greatly from the time I had started that day.
I learned that it was far more beneficial for me to have a plan when I got to the practice room and divide my time across a few pieces or passages than to rehearse all of my pieces extensively every day.

I wish you a speedy recovery.

Offline ajlongspiano

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #6 on: July 18, 2016, 04:43:25 AM
Thank you so much. This is wonderful advice!

Best,

AJ

Offline irrational

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #7 on: July 18, 2016, 08:47:51 AM
It sounds like inflammation from overuse.
Something that I suffered in various forms over years in different kinds of sport and also piano.

I agree with many others that you probably practice too much and should give your muscles rest time. Constant high intensity is not good in any way.

The inflammation will seem to be gone but flare up very fast again if not managed. TIME is very important here and don't rush it.
For now, from my own experiences, I'd suggest no practice for 2 days.
Then for at least a week take it extremely easy. As in 30-45 mins. and break for an hour. 
I don't know your situation, but if its painful to the point where its hard to use your arms, I'd try to get away from playing at all for a week or 2 and take it easy for another week..
In effect just keeping your arms and hands moving, but not taxed. Overcautious perhaps, but its better than not being able to play at all for months due to injury.
Basically don't practice until its sore because then its too late. If you constantly practice it would take your body longer to repair the damage. The worst I had was 6 months down from sport because I did not give enough rest time to start.
You can alleviate symptoms with anti-inflammatory gel ( find pills don't work well and make you feel terrible). But remember its just alleviating symptoms, not healing. So don't go practicing hard again if you feel its fine.

Hope you get good rest!

Offline ronde_des_sylphes

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #8 on: July 18, 2016, 08:58:23 AM
I agree completely with pianiststrongbad. I'm actually quite concerned to read how much practice time you are spending; it is greatly increasing the risk of injury. My experience is that:
Several years ago I would occasionally practice more than 4 hours per day - I found that beyond that time there was diminishing returns. Sure I could still sit at the piano comfortably and play through pieces, but at that point I was merely playing pieces and not really "practicing" anything as my concentration had diminished greatly from the time I had started that day.
this is spot on. To this I would add that often breakthroughs with problematic passages are achieved away from the piano. By this I mean that the problem is often wrongly perceived as digital when it in fact turns out to be mental (e.g. the passage wasn't working out because it hadn't been broken down into unit groups or its constituent groups had been formed wrongly; a redistribution of notes suddenly makes it infinitely easier; fingering was wrong, inappropriate or inconsistent, and many other similar issues). Lengthy, potentially unfocussed practice runs the risk of not just failing to solve the problems but ingraining new ones.

Meanwhile you will have to take a break, certainly from the level of practice you are doing. As stated above, if it persists, see a doctor (or specialist physiotherapist, e.g. one who works with sports injuries).

As for warm-up, my personal approach is that I improvise and gradually introduce various technical figurations (scales, arpeggios, octaves, double-note passages) into the process. It's a completely relaxed approach and I'm thinking about the sound more than anything else at the time, so it doesn't feel like a technical drill, or similar.

Good luck.
My website - www.andrewwrightpianist.com
Info and samples from my first commercial album - https://youtu.be/IlRtSyPAVNU
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Offline ajlongspiano

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #9 on: July 18, 2016, 05:59:17 PM
Thank you all very much for your help. It is greatly appreciated :). I'm resting up. Any good movies you'd all recommend? haha.

Best,

AJ

Offline visitor

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #10 on: July 18, 2016, 07:20:33 PM

Offline chopinlover01

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #11 on: July 18, 2016, 08:37:27 PM
Schindler's List is good, I've heard.

Offline 109natsu

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #12 on: July 19, 2016, 06:18:15 AM
Hi AJ,

I completely 100%ly agree with
If you must regularly practice more than 4 hours per day, then I have a few recommendations:
- Take a 5 minute break every hour. This is the same advice a doctor makes to someone who works in an office every day. Sitting in a chair for extended periods is not healthy for the body.
- Make sure you do not feel any tension in your hands or arms. Tension is the enemy of piano playing and leads to injury.
- Try to build a practice schedule and document what you practice. For example, indicate how much time you spent trying to get a particular passage up to tempo. Write down how much time you spend trying to memorize a particular passage.
- Don't practice physically taxing passages (glissandi, or extended octave passages) for longer than 20 minutes at a time.

Several years ago I would occasionally practice more than 4 hours per day - I found that beyond that time there was diminishing returns. Sure I could still sit at the piano comfortably and play through pieces, but at that point I was merely playing pieces and not really "practicing" anything as my concentration had diminished greatly from the time I had started that day.
I learned that it was far more beneficial for me to have a plan when I got to the practice room and divide my time across a few pieces or passages than to rehearse all of my pieces extensively every day.

I wish you a speedy recovery.

But twelve hours a day is freaking insane, and you WILL break your body, and you wouldn't want that in college. Productivity is what's important, not the amount of time you spend your time on.

Best wishes,

Natsu Ozawa
Seattle, WA

Offline visitor

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #13 on: July 20, 2016, 04:39:30 PM
this is a great , really fantastic and touching film/documentary, saw this recently, i will def watch again in the future, and i don't generally  like watching much of anything >1
Seymore Bernstein : An introduction
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2219650/


this is on my list of to watch for when i feel like something foreign and will put up w sub titles
Vitus
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478829/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Offline rachmaninoff_forever

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #14 on: July 20, 2016, 06:17:24 PM
Don't practice 8-12 hours a day you're overworking

Some people can pull it off but you're hurting yourself so chill out
Live large, die large.  Leave a giant coffin.

Offline ajlongspiano

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #15 on: July 20, 2016, 06:42:30 PM
Don't practice 8-12 hours a day you're overworking

Some people can pull it off but you're hurting yourself so chill out

A year ago I was practicing about that much and doing fine. The problem is that I took a big break from piano for awhile, and came back full force. You know how things like that turn out :P.

Best,

AJ

Offline pencilart3

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #16 on: July 22, 2016, 07:04:58 PM
Schindler's List is good, I've heard.

nothing compared to schindler's liszt!

I didn't hear about this. So sorry AJ! I hope you feel better. Fortunately the body heals itself of these minor injuries if left alone and taken proper care of as mentioned ^^

I hope you feel better! You can always try watching snow falling on TV. LOL Or watch James Kingston or ontheroofs on youtube keeps the heart rate up better than exercising.
You might have seen one of my videos without knowing it was that nut from the forum
youtube.com/noahjohnson1810

Offline huaidongxi

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #17 on: July 23, 2016, 10:30:13 AM
a speedy recovery to you.  you might consider taking up t'ai qi, which emphasizes relaxation and circulation of energy, zero impact stress on the arms, wrists, hands.

recommended films, "A Late Quartet", but only if you can tolerate lots of Beethoven string quartet music, and watching fictional lives of elite musicians.  not about music, "The Corporation", a documentary on how megacorporations extract and exploit anything and anyone that/who can be converted into a commodity, written and produced in Canada.

Offline itsnanoguys

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #18 on: July 27, 2016, 12:56:53 AM
In my opinion nothing productive happens beyond practicing 4 hours per day. I think people are more prone to injury when they practice for extended periods of time even if they are free of tension when playing.

Try taking a week off piano. If you are still in pain after the week, see a doctor.
this much is true. even if you feel like you must practice that much, you don't. This number comes from studies that have found that practicing more than 4 hours can actually be worse than practicing around 4 hours. I bet you can practice efficiently but thoughful practicing with all of your concentration will eliminate the need to practice for 4 hours a day, even keeping it to 8 hours would be better. part of growing is rigorous and honest self-analysis.
also, Turmeric is an herb that helps people with joint problems.. maybe take some Turmeric supplements. You also might need to take black pepper because I've heard that turmeric can't be absorbed properly by itself but with a chemical called Piperine in the pepper it absorbs 20x. it won't work as a panacea but it may help you recover.

Offline itsnanoguys

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #19 on: July 27, 2016, 01:01:50 AM
this much is true. even if you feel like you must practice that much, you don't. This number comes from studies that have found that practicing more than 4 hours can actually be worse than practicing around 4 hours. I bet you can practice efficiently but thoughful practicing with all of your concentration will eliminate the need to practice for 4 hours a day, even keeping it to 8 hours would be better. part of growing is rigorous and honest self-analysis.
also, Turmeric is an herb that helps people with joint problems.. maybe take some Turmeric supplements. You also might need to take black pepper because I've heard that turmeric can't be absorbed properly by itself but with a chemical called Piperine in the pepper it absorbs 20x. it won't work as a panacea but it may help you recover.
I'd be interested to see if turmeric helps you improve in a couple of weeks.

Offline rachmaninoff_forever

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #20 on: July 27, 2016, 06:42:53 PM
A year ago I was practicing about that much and doing fine. The problem is that I took a big break from piano for awhile, and came back full force. You know how things like that turn out :P.

Best,

AJ

Yeah you were fine a year ago but it eventually caught up to you.

Either way, if you're injured you still gotta chill out for a while.  Depending on how severe the injury
Live large, die large.  Leave a giant coffin.

Offline ajlongspiano

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Re: (AjLongsPiano) Injury: Please Help
Reply #21 on: July 27, 2016, 07:31:15 PM
Thanks for your support everyone. I'm better now and building back up my practice routine.

@Rachmaninoff_forever - The old practicing didn't catch up to me. It was the fact that I quit for a few months and started again full force without slowly building my practice schedule gradually. Thanks for your comment. :)

Best,

AJ
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