Fitness and Guitar

Apart from being a musician, I'm also a fitness enthusiast. I have been for the last 10 years. Only a few would've thought of whether the gym is going to affect your abilities on the guitar. Truth be told, yes it does affect your guitar abilities. 

How?

Well, we all know that the guitar is an instrument that you can use to shred on, play really cool riffs, solos, legatos, and the list just goes on. A lot of the things that one plays on the guitar involves fast finger and hand movements. 

For me, I'm more of a calisthenics guy, I train in calisthenics six times a week, but I also go to the gym three to four times a week, so I don't have THAT much of a problem.

Today we're talking about people who go to the gym six times a week and that's all that their fitness training involves...weights and cardio.

For you guys, your gym training might just be hampering your abilities to play the guitar. The reason for this is, the workouts that you do in the gym, they make your body a lot stiffer, less flexible. 

You use your hands to lift weights and in many exercises, your wrist and forearm get worked out too. Apart from this, you do work out your wrist and forearm separately as well with weights.

Now if you're playing simple chords, this does not hamper playing at all. However, all guitarists know that when you're shredding or playing a lot of notes really fast, your fingers move fast, and that strains your forearm after a certain point. With gym enthusiasts, their forearms will hurt them a lot faster, because of their workout regime and stiffness in the forearm. 

Try this: anytime you don't play the guitar for a week or two, go to the gym during that period, and when you pick up the guitar again you would notice how little you can play on it without getting tired. 

Prevention and Cure

Well...the easiest solution is...to just keep playing. You go to the gym every day, play the guitar everyday at least for a while. That's the only solution to not letting your gym regime affect your abilities on the guitar. 

Contrary to the popular belief, working out your forearms has nothing to do with being able to play more. Gym helps give your forearm size and strength to be able to lift heavier things, and yes it makes your forearms feel hard and strong, but it will only hamper your guitar-playing and shredding. The stiffness that comes with gym training is going to act up when you play the guitar after a while.

On the other hand, like I mentioned earlier, if you continue playing the guitar along with your workouts, it won't really affect your playing much. In fact, you won't even notice any difference if you play regularly. 

If workouts make my forearms stiff whether I practice or not, how will regular practice make no difference to my guitar-playing?

Well, technically, it does make a difference. However, you never notice it. This is because your forearms don't become stiff all of a sudden, neither does your wrist. Everything is a gradual process. 

Let's say your forearms are at level 0 right now. You play the guitar really well, you shred.

You work out at the gym, and soon your forearms reach level 1. There is obviously going to be a difference. However, the only difference you'll feel is the difference between 0 and 1, which is negligible. You may not even notice it while playing. However, as you play, your body adapts to it and you can soon play the guitar as good as you could at level 0.

Similarly, you keep working out, your forearm and wrist reach level 2.

Once again, there will be a negligible difference. Since you're playing regularly, your body is already used to playing with your forearms at level 1. Hence, the only difference will be between 1 and 2, which is again, negligible, and your body will adapt to it. 

This goes on and on. On the other hand, if you skipped playing guitar for weeks, but you worked out and your forearms and wrist are at level 2, the difference will be between level 0 and level 2, which is much more of a jump for your body to adapt to, and you will feel strain. This is why regular guitar-playing can solve your problem with gym regimes.