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Have you ever injured the interior forearm playing?

baddarryl

baddarryl

Oct 26, 2008
1,738
1,537
Cape Fear!
#1
Hi all I picked up the bass for the first time or 7 or 8 years about 10 days ago and I have been playing a couple hours a day I guess. I also have a degenerative neck issue and a numbing and heaviness feeling of my arm as a result of that. This week the interior muscle of my forearm on the inside feels like it is strained and tight and I cannot reach the full distance with it. I don't know what that muscle is called a but it is the meaty part on the inside of the forearm not the outside. I am wondering if this is a result of my playing or just my neck issue acting up. I have been playing in a sitting position using a floating thumb technique and trying to keep my wrist straight and doing not quite as much with a pick. For that matter my fretting hand on the inside seems to be over worked too, but I surely can attribute that to not stretching last week before playing. Are interior forearm muscles soreness common with bassists? I've never had it before. Thanks!
 
#2
Not with me. I'd suggest a few days rest then get back to playing and see if that helped. One thing to keep in mind there is no pain in bass. Discomfort from doing things that have never been done before, but, pain does not enter into what we do. If there is stop doing what is causing the pain and if it keeps up seek medical help.
 
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#3
Something like that can become tendinitis if that muscle gets too tight and starts yanking on the tendon's attachment-to-bone point 24/7. I've had tendinitist on inside and outside of both forearms all at the same time and I developed it when practicing many, many hours a day, most of those hours without rest. You don't want tendinitis. I used anchor thumb then. I scaled way back on my playing for months, did some acupuncture and warming then returned with a lighter touch and mostly floating thumb. Probably more importantly, based on my intuition, I no longer sit there in playing position for more than an hour without a break and stretching.

I now occasionally play pain-free for many hours a day and so do many other people. I am now very aware of any signs of muscle tightness and I no longer ignore it. I stop for 5 or 15 minutes and do other things while stretching gently but fully.

Also, there are plenty of super-heavy pluckers and plenty of people with wrists that are bent "too much" who don't get tendinitis. Ignoring genetics which can't be totally ignored in this, the muscles can be trained to happily do a lot of stuff over time but no muscle wants to stay in one flexed position for too long, certainly not right out of the gate after a 7 year hiatus.

Get online and look for some warm-up and stretching exercises, especially ones you can do before you even pick-up your bass- let's face it, once bass is in hand one wants to play and can easily forget to take it easy. You can start wiggling your fingers, shaking out your hands and spreading out your arms to full extension while you're watching TV or heating up a coffee/snack right before you sit down to practice. Don't let the pain fool you into thinking that that is the exact/only point of strain; sections of the body work together so you can have pain in one place that might actually be the result of a muscle tightness that started somewhere else. Warm-up, stretch and rest periodically.
 
#4
Upright bass fried my left arm in the first weeks of playing. Shoulder, elbow and forearm.

Teacher corrected my form and the pains shifted to my hands. Left hand was tired, cramping easily and the as it became stronger my right hand blistered.

I've been at it for 8 months and I'm toughened up but man did that hurt.

You sound like you're doing something wrong or congenital stuff. Either way, see an experienced teacher and get evaluated.

Playing bass should not hurt
 
#5
baddarryl said:
Hi all I picked up the bass for the first time or 7 or 8 years about 10 days ago and I have been playing a couple hours a day I guess.
Click to expand...

20 hours in 10 days after not playing for 8 years is too much too soon for any kind of exercise.
Cut your time per day back to 30 minutes or less and gradually work your way up as your muscles get used to it again.
 
#7
baddarryl said:
Hi all I picked up the bass for the first time or 7 or 8 years about 10 days ago and I have been playing a couple hours a day I guess. I also have a degenerative neck issue and a numbing and heaviness feeling of my arm as a result of that. This week the interior muscle of my forearm on the inside feels like it is strained and tight and I cannot reach the full distance with it. I don't know what that muscle is called a but it is the meaty part on the inside of the forearm not the outside. I am wondering if this is a result of my playing or just my neck issue acting up. I have been playing in a sitting position using a floating thumb technique and trying to keep my wrist straight and doing not quite as much with a pick. For that matter my fretting hand on the inside seems to be over worked too, but I surely can attribute that to not stretching last week before playing. Are interior forearm muscles soreness common with bassists? I've never had it before. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Sounds like you are playing to long if you are playing a couple of hours a day in one session.

Ideal session is warm up (5 mins max) play for 20 min, rest for 20 mins, play for 20 mins in any hour.

It is assumed you will rest between what you are working on in the 20 mins of playing, and in the resting part either stretches, or reading new info to work on in the next 20 mins, or reviewing what you did in the last twenty mins, taking in fluids, having a bite to eat to fuel the muscles etc.

In all you need to work up to playing.

if you playing, or want to play in say a bar/pub band you need to work on what is required to play the sets, in the UK that is usually 2 x 45, so practice should not be longer than say 45 mins consistent playing, or a better way to see it maybe a series of 5 minutes practices to reflect the fact that you play a song, stop.... play anther song, stop... and so on in real situation playing.

Practice is cool, but do not rush it and do not over do it....and remember to warm down.
 
#9
It's certainly possible that this is just a matter of overdoing it, as others have said, but it seems odd to me that you'd be feeling the strain in that particular spot (on your fretting-hand side, if I'm understanding correctly). My first concern is always about maintaining a straight wrist, but you say you are doing that so that's evidently not the problem. I'm just spitballin' here, but here's a thought: When you play sitting down, as you've been doing, are you sitting in a way that allows the bass body to be in the same position as it would be if you were standing and using a strap? Or, is the body higher (i.e., closer to your head) when you sit relative to when you stand? Here's why I ask: When I play standing, I like the body of the bass to sit on the front of my right hip, which allows me to maintain a perfectly straight wrist with only a small bend in my elbow. When I sit on my couch, however, the bass body (sitting on my right leg) is higher, which means that in order to maintain a straight wrist and use the floating thumb, I have to hold my arm up higher to get the proper angle. I'm pretty sure that if I sat there and played like that for a couple of hours something would start hurting, though I don't know if it would be where you are feeling it.

Does that make any sense?
 

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