Getting back into playing. Have you ever lost your guitar-stamina?

Tannhauser

Tannhauser

Inspired
I play guitar daily. But maybe for 10 minutes at a time, a couple of times a day.

Work has got in the way of my downtime, and I've decided to do something about it.

The reason I'm posting is because I realised my fingers feel heavy, or tired, when I play. I know how to do everything still, I can still play and to the average person I would say it probably doesn't even sound bad. But it's so much effort. I can hear it in the playing. I can feel it in my hand. I thought that it might be because I'd developed a habit of squeezing the strings too hard and I've been trying to lighten up,

BUT, I think it's just got to be that I'm way out of practice.

Has anyone else had this?
 
How old are you? I definitely have lost some dexterity/speed as I have aged(now 52), but when I eat low carb, my inflammation drops and aches and pains subside and I play with much more ease.
 
Tannhauser said:
I play guitar daily. But maybe for 10 minutes at a time, a couple of times a day.

Work has got in the way of my downtime, and I've decided to do something about it.

The reason I'm posting is because I realised my fingers feel heavy, or tired, when I play. I know how to do everything still, I can still play and to the average person I would say it probably doesn't even sound bad. But it's so much effort. I can hear it in the playing. I can feel it in my hand. I thought that it might be because I'd developed a habit of squeezing the strings too hard and I've been trying to lighten up,

BUT, I think it's just got to be that I'm way out of practice.

Has anyone else had this?
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Yes, but it isn't in your hand. It is in your musical soul. You already know this.
 
Yes, very sadly, more than once in my life. Thankfully, it's only ever been for relatively short periods of time, and never entirely. When family became a priority, guitar and music in general began to take a back seat. I should never have allowed that to happen. But, 2008 was also a hard year. I've worked in many areas of the music field. The hardest part has been keeping momentum. That's made much harder when you allow it to completely stop.
 
Like any muscle in your body; the adaptation of imposed loads are respective of the frequency, intensity, duration, rest/recovery and nutrition.

10 minute bouts of guitar has adapted your output to 10 minute bouts.

You lost stamina due to what is called the reversibility principle.

But the good news is that unlike a novice you’ll be able to recover your guitar dexterity and fine motor stamina quickly but training needs to be reflective of the desired output.

This is called the specificity of training.

Caveat:
Beware that all of this is based on an average healthy person without myopathy or other pathological conditions.
 
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Yes just like anything you get out of shape if you sit on ass. Same with playing. My chops are nowhere near where I was 10 years ago. I just don't play as much as I'd like.
 
Yes, but for me I get my mojo back after a couple of days. If it's an energy thing, I find that the older I get (I'm almost 34), the more I need to be a nerd about keeping up my energy levels and hydrating. Drink water and watch what you eat - that stuff didn't seem to matter when I was 16 but goddammit I'm fighting for my life in my thirties 🤣😭

I think playing every day is great. Do you warm up at all? I don't lol but it might be good for you.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone, some interesting responses.

A few years ago I did a LOT of practice learning a solo with some sweep picking in which I'd never done before and gave myself tendonitis, which I saw a physiotherapist for help to fix up.

Perhaps that was, in retrospect, a warning sign that I needed to take care of myself a little more. I have been playing 25 years at this point and had always just gone for it from the moment go with whatever I was working on at the time.

I've actually started to do some warm up exercises (mainly scales in all positions using hammer ons/pull offs) to a steady pulse but I think perhaps I need to book the time to play rather than just grabbing the guitar for a quick break from work, which as I WFH, was quite often. It probably doesn't do you much good to launch straight into a difficult bit of a piece of music for 10 minutes when cold then stop. Only to do the same thing a few hours later.

I think I'll try and be more dilligent with that and actually get warmed up properly.

Alternatively, as suggested, my musical soul is actually dead and I should just give up. 😂
 
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Your musical soul is never dead!
It might not always be front and center in your life, and you can choose where it fits in this time, but it's in there.
 
Tannhauser said:
A few years ago I did a LOT of practice learning a solo with some sweep picking in which I'd never done before and gave myself tendonitis, which I saw a physiotherapist for help to fix up.
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Could be bad genetics or could be unhealthy methods of practice. I've spent many hours slowing down solos in GuitarPro 5.2 (the golden years of GP 😭) and never had an issue like that, so it probably depends on the manner in which you were practicing that solo.
 
Sorenspete said:
Could be bad genetics or...
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Thanks for the expert analysis

michael GIF
 
dpeterson said:
Yes just like anything you get out of shape if you sit on ass. Same with playing. My chops are nowhere near where I was 10 years ago. I just don't play as much as I'd like.
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Exactly this for me. I don't play nearly as much as I used to. What I lose after a while is my fingertips get really sore and I need to build them up again.
 
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