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Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | Just play and play some more. I found the same thing, my hand would get really tired and the thumb would hurt after a few minutes of bar chords. Since being back south last fall I've been playing a ton and it just doesn't hurt much anymore.
Won't the gripmaster work more on the fingers rather than the thumb? Use the old method, squeeze a tennis ball, that will focus on the thumb muscles. Squeeze and hold. Good luck. Keep it in the car with you. |
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Posts: 14842
Location: NJ | Get a book on the art of giving massage.
You'll develop thumbs like ViseGrips and your spouse'll love you for it . . . |
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November 2003
Posts: 11039
Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | I still have a bit of weirdness in my thumb from running myself through last year. I'm glad it wasn't my left hand in that, the muscles effected would fatigue quickly while posting my thumb on the neck and for stuff like Barre chords. |
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Posts: 4413
| Like Hobbypicker says - ease off. I bet you don't need to squeeze half as hard as you do. I fyou practice playing REAL quiet you'll find that as you use less and less pressure with your picking hand so you use less pressure on your chording hand.
Also - al di meola technique - when you make the bar leave as much of the top of your finger above the fingerboard as you can, so that the top E string is almost being stopped by yhe top of your palm. It feels really wierd, but it seems to lessen the amount of pressure you need.
I've got a gripmaster and it doesn't do anything for your thumb. W2's tennis ball is much better.
Maybe one guage lighter strings would help as well.
Good luck. |
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Joined:
September 2006
Posts: 10777
Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | Originally posted by schroeder:
Also - al di meola technique - when you make the bar leave as much of the top of your finger above the fingerboard as you can, so that the top E string is almost being stopped by yhe top of your palm. It feels really wierd, but it seems to lessen the amount of pressure you need.
Good luck. That is sooo simple! And when I am doing Bm and other 5th string barres, just don't hit the big E.
I just read that; reached over, did an F, F#m, G, A, Am, Bm, B7, Dm... Works great! I have been preoccupied with putting the tip of my index finger right on the 6th, or 5th (with alittle muting touch on the 6th). So much for the How-to Books.
That may take alittle retraining but...
Thank-You-Very-Much...
[oh, I already ordered the Gripmaster] |
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November 2004
Posts: 4413
| $10 please. I accept Visa, Paypal and Guinness. |
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January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | how do you put Guinness in an envelope? |
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October 2005
Posts: 5332
Location: Bluffton, SC | C'mon, Bill. You can't put a Guinness in an envelope! You have to pour it in a BOX! |
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November 2003
Posts: 11039
Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | " . . .You have to pour it in a BOX! . . ."
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Posts: 4833
Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Ruins the flavour. And we can't go back to that pub ever again. |
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April 2007
Posts: 225
Location: Stow, Ohio | You may also want to try another exercise.
Hold you freting hand closed (not a fist), thumbs and fingertips touching, then with the other hand, appply anough pressure to add resistance when you open your fretting hand. We exercise our hands everday gripping things, but we never exercise opening them. oh, don't hurt yourself by trying to hard at forst. :) |
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Thumb exercises
