Injuries and Issues
By Guts
Getting Used to Injuries
One of the most annoying things about being passionate about something new, something that’s fairly physical, is my tendency to get injured. Usually it’s nothing severe, but it can still stop me from doing the things I love from time to time.
I’ve been an on-and-off runner for the past ten years or so, but due to various injuries it’s been mostly off. I strained the soles of my feet a couple of years ago, which led me to completely stop running for a long while. It took my feet about a year and a half to get back to normal, and I just started running again a few weeks ago. The only problem is: I quickly developed another strain injury, only on the outside of the foot this time. So I’m back to resting, massaging and stretching.
The Story Continues
The same thing happens with my drumming. Very early on, sometime during March or April, I tried to watch as many interested drum videos as YouTube could offer. One of these videos described a practice routine where you simply grab your sticks firmly, and start hitting a pillow. Grabbing the sticks firmly makes this pretty much a wrist-only motion, and since the pillow gives you virtually no rebound, you’re giving your lower arm muscles a good workout, both during the down-stroke and back up.
This is a great exercise. But maybe not when you’re just starting out, you’re sitting by yourself in the couch, you’ve enjoyed a handful of beers, and you’re starting to lose track of how long you’ve been smashing away at that poor pillow. The subsequent day I felt a little bit tired, a bit soar in my lower arms. It was time for practice, so I didn’t give it much thought and went to the rehearsal place as usual. If I remember correctly, it was even a pretty good rehearsal, which didn’t make things any better. When I was done for the day, my arms felt warm and even more soar, and when I got home I noticed a slight swelling in my right arm. Here we go again, oh, repetitive strain injury!
It was time for resting. Leaving those sticks alone for a while to focus on massage and stretching. These days I try to pay more attention to my body, and I try to warm up my muscles and joints before practice. I’m going to dedicate a post to my usual warm up and cool down routines.
My Latest Achievement
But it doesn’t stop there, of course. The past week, I’ve been feeling some discomfort in my thumbs: the muscles that connect the thumb to the middle of the palm. I repeated the same mistake again and went to rehearse yesterday, only to find that the condition worsened. This time I should really have taken it more seriously, since I can easily imagine what the problem is: I pinch the sticks too hard with my thumbs, tensing those poor muscles a lot more than they’re used to. It’s worse in my right hand, and I think I’ve been keeping my hi-hat too tight, giving very little rebound. So: more rest and massage, adjust the hi-hat and make sure to relax my grip a bit!
Of course I should listen to my body more, of course I should take it easy, of course I should take more breaks during practice. But it’s just so damn fun to play!
Have you experienced any drum-related injuries?