Hey everybody it's Doctor Jo, and for all
of you have asked me can I play the
guitar...
Well, I can play G, I can play G. How 'bout C, yes that's C,
even D, back to G.
So yeah, I can kind of play a little bit.
As you've guessed, I'm going to show you some
stretches and exercises for guitarists.
Let's get started.
So that little diddy was a
shout-out to my buddy Luke. We wrote that
song when I was teaching him how to play
guitar. So thanks bud. Alright, let's get
started. The best way to start is to
loosen up those muscles in the hand
especially the ones that you're going to
use a lot, and that is you're thenar
muscle and your hypothenar muscle. And
a good way to get those going is really
just to massage it a little bit. So take
the thumb of the other finger and just
kind of do a little massaging there. Put
a little bit of pressure and do some
circular motions. So really getting that
whole area. You can go right into the
palm as well and just stretch those
muscles by massaging them a little bit
to get them warmed up, get the blood
flowing in there, and getting everything
set up. So I would just start off maybe
about a two to three minutes of this
just nice rolling everything around. If
you have a ball, a tennis ball or
something, you can roll that around in
there as well, but I like using my
fingers a little bit better because you
can kind of get down in there and put a
little more pressure in the spots that
you want to. After you get that
warmed up, get those muscles nice and
loose, then you're just going to do a
finger tap to the thumb and then
alternate around to each finger. So
you're just going to come up, out, up, out,
up, out, so just really kind of, this is
still just starting to get those fingers
moving a little bit, loosen up.
Come in for both of them, meet in the middle
and back out. So really stretching back
out as you go.
I would just do maybe three to five of
those to get everything nice and warmed
up and you can alternate back and forth
if you want to. The next set of stretches
is a pretty cool stretch. I like it
because you can either do it with your
elbow bent which is not as much of a
stretch, or with your elbows straight out
and that's more of a stretch. And this is
going into finger
extension by pulling your finger out. Again if
the elbow's bent, it's not quite as much.
If it's straight it's a little bit more.
But hold the finger that you're going to
start with and take the other fingers
and curl them down, and so you'll feel a
really big stretch in that hand / finger
area. So just do about three or five and
then do that with each finger. And then
the other ones go down while that finger
is stretched out as much as you can.
Again now, remember this straight out is a
lot and if that's too much for you, bend
that elbow just a little bit so it's not
quite as much of the stretch, but this is
a really big stretch you'll feel it a
lot.
Make sure and do both sides so you have
your picking finger and your string
holding fingers as well. So going back
and forth with all those. Then you're
going to do the opposite,
bending the finger and then it changes.
So straight out is not quite as much, and
bending is then more. So holding that
finger down, pulling the other ones up
this time, so that again just really kind
of stretches those fingers out into the
hands a lot and it's a really really
nice stretch. But again stretching
shouldn't be painful it should be
comfortable it should be a "hurt so good" kind
of feeling. Again making sure that you're
doing both sides and going back and
forth between three to five times with
those. But that gets it nice and
stretched out, gets those fingers moving really
well. Then you're going to go into the
thumb, so for the thumb to get it
stretched out on the outside, those
extensors, take the thumb and squeeze it
into your fingers like that. If that's
too much, you can hold it on the outside,
but to get a really good stretch
there, hold it in like that. Arm straight
out with the thumb up on top, and go down
into a radial deviation, and that should
stretch all the way up in there. And
again you can just do like five on each
side. You can do tthem together if you want to, or you
can hold it for about 10 to 15 seconds
and
do about four or five sets of those. So
whichever one is more comfortable for
you, that that's fine. You can also then
take the thumb and pull it back,
so again you know comfortable not
painful, but getting a nice stretch in
there and then switching sides so
holding 15-20 seconds doing 4-5 of those.
After you've done that, the webbing in
between your fingers you want to stretch
those out. So just taking your fingers
and pushing out this way. So you want to
feel it in that little cup, that "V" right
there. That's where you should feel the
stretch. You don't have to hold these for a
super long time, 1. because there's a
lot of them, but 2. just because they're
a lot smaller, so they don't need quite
as much of a stretch. So this can be more
of a continuous thing, but really
stretching those areas out and getting
them loosened up. And then the last thing
really just to get those fingers
strengthened and stretch out a little bit,
just take a rubber band, it doesn't have to
be anything special, and wrap it around
the tips of the fingers and the thumb
there. And then just open up and slowly
come back down. So when you open up you
don't want to just come back quickly, you
really want to control that rubber band.
But just getting some strengthening, and
those fingers pushing out and slowly
coming back in. So doing about five to 10
of those should be plenty on both sides.
So those are your stretches and
exercises for the guitarist.
If you have any questions, leave them in the
comments section. If you'd like to check out some other
videos, go to askdoctorjo.com and
remember. Be safe. Have fun. And I hope you feel better soon.