I know we've gone over this and there were some great and helpful answers. I'm thinking of a slightly different approach though, having watched PT at a hospital lately. So are there any Physical Therapists out there that play guitar and that can tell us the most useful exercises for our hands and fingers?

GuitarZen

...squeeze progressively 'stiffer' balls, ie: start with a knerf ball, then a sponge ball, then an "old" tennis ball (not as stiff), finally a "new" tennis ball....finally (jokingly!) move UP to a baseball (wink,wink).

...actually, the PT people often direct you to those adjustable hand "spring" squeezers.

Thanks OTM, that's a good idea with the old tennis ball. I don't have any real problems, but new players that I talk with always ask me about hand/finger exercises.  Questions about playing gran barre chords are about the most common.

I find the more you play it strengthens you're fingers anyway.  When I first started playing my hands would pain pretty quick but the fibres in your hands just strengthen over time.

Besides I don't have time to squeeze any balls lol
Would rather spend that time playing.

Now that I think about it, I could have been more specific. More than for strengthening, though that is important to me, I'm thinking about more like 'warm up' exercises before playing. Remember, some player's hands aren't as young as they used to be ! Most definately though, the more I play, the stronger my hands and fingers become as far as making/reaching for chords is concerned, true.

Cheers,

GuitarZen

sparky_wit wrote:

I find the more you play it strengthens you're fingers anyway.  When I first started playing my hands would pain pretty quick but the fibres in your hands just strengthen over time.

Besides I don't have time to squeeze any balls lol
Would rather spend that time playing.

This is true Sparky_wit.
I played for lyk an hour a day and i felt the pain for 2 weeks....i tried band aids but that just wrecks the sound of the strings....leaving your fingers in pain is the best thing to do....its just gets tougher and tougher each time u play.

As a newly minted wanna-be in an old body, I have spent some time looking for exercises.  Any strengthening exercise is good but exercises to increase flexibility and mobility are even more important, IMHO.

Start your warm up with either E string, fret and pick with all 4 fingers, move to the 5th fret and continue all the way down the neck. Come back down from bridge to the nut on the next string. Go through all the strings.

Now that you remember what the fretboard feels like, start the hammer-ons using the 1234, 1243, 1324, etc method.  When you finish with hammer-ons, do the same with pull-offs.

Assuming your fingers are still attached at this point and you have loads more energy, put all 4 fingers on a string.  Lift fingers 1 & 3 making sure you keep 2 & 4 down, also make sure you keep your fingers curled as you lift them.  Quickly hammer both fingers down and lift 2 & 4.  About 10 reps should make your fingers fall-off the first time you try it.

Rather than going all out on barres at this stage in my development, a cord like Dm seems to give a good stretch when you push it to make sure your getting nice and close to the frets. Of course I still try and do barres just because their there.

This is a family project with me, son and grandson all trying to learn this confounded instrument and we each come up with ideas to push our little group.  Any more helpful hints on flexiblity and strength would be appreciated.

JJ

Bluenote, that's quite a warm up, just what I was looking for and I'm going to print that out with your permission and give it a try. Thank you !

Cheers,

GuitarZen

GuitarZen, Read your post on hand exercises and am trying the ball squeezing
thing.  anything that helps.....   
Jag.