coming back to playing after an injury

years ago - i think in 2008 - i caught myself falling down a flight of stairs, tearing my rotator cuff in several places. very soon afterward, my other shoulder developed either frozen shoulder (doctor) or a torn rotator cuff (physical therapist). for a while i couldn't use my left arm pretty much at all, but when i could move it some, i tried playing and hurt my right shoulder further by playing small but still not shallow acoustic guitars. then there's some tendonitis in wrists and right elbow. but mostly it was my shoulders, and sometimes the pain lasted for days or weeks, sometimes only minutes at a time.

so i spent over a year playing only a lap harp and keyboards, which i don't play well at all, but they didn't engage my shoulders. then i got a washburn rover guitar - they're ridiculously tiny, and i hate the neck. still, i was playing. and as i worked up to short scale basses - the first of which was my first mikro - i had to sort out posture workarounds to be able to play.

fast forward to now. i've been back to playing for a few years. for quite a while, my options were small body short scales - mikros, violin bass, traveler guitar basses and my ubass. but that was a huge step up from not playing.

but as i'm slowly improving more, so that i can now play small body long scales and some other long scales depending on shape and stuff, i'm noticing more and more how much less well i play than i did before my injury. some of the issues have to do with those posture workarounds, which change the angle of every finger, wrist and hand muscle from how i used to play.

don't get me wrong - i'm SO grateful that i can play a variety of basses and make music again. yes, i sometimes have shoulder or wrist issues, but nowhere near what i used to have, and i can pretty much always play a mikro. i don't own a bass light enough to play standing - and no, a wider or more padded shoulder area doesn't help at all - lighter weight is the deal here. i did get an mbrace, but there's nothing like playing while you can move freely.

but i'm slower when i play - mostly my fretting hand, and i seem to have problems playing across the neck smoothly, although not up and down the neck. i used to play super speed punk and thrash, and now i can't play perky motown without really working at it. years ago my fretting and plucking hands both had big muscles between the thumbs and forefingers, but they don't have 'em now - it's like my hands are 98 pounds weaklings

and yeah, i know time and playing with improve things quite a bit. i may not get it all back, but i should improve with speed and dexterity. i miss playing a lot of the stuff i used to play. but i'll get at least some of it back. and i'm playing easier stuff i never played before because it is satisfying to play stuff smoothly with everything right. but sometimes it's pretty depressing, too. but i convince myself to play anyway.

how about you? what's your story when it comes to recovering from injuries that interfered with you playing bass?

 

i was not considered a good candidate for surgery. i did two courses of PT, but i found more effective exercises online than i got from 2 different physical therapists at cedar's. i've had more progress in the months since i found those exercises than i had in all the years before. and i'm gentle and patient to avoid any further injuries.

 

sorry to hear about your wrist.

hopefully i do that well, but i wanna bang out 16ths for an entire 1 minute punk song