Building endurance

[guitarsjb]

Anyone have any good suggestions?? I practice about 2 hours a day, 3 times a week, but my endurance (mostly w/downpicking) sucks. I can't seem to play all of our songs (6 so far) without fatigue. My picking hand is where the problem mainly is. [img]/images/graemlins/help.gif[/img]

[Newc]

Re: Building endurance

Try changing the order of the songs in the list. Sometimes one song may actually be a bit of a rest you need to build back up to another one.
Q1 - Where in your arm is the trouble specifically? Ability to maintain your grip on the pick? Stiffness or soreness in your forearm, shoulder, or bicep?
Q2 - How low do you wear the guitar; Hetfield or Mustaine?
Q3 - Do you pump your whole arm or just pivot at the wrist?
Q4 - What pick do you use?

[guitarsjb]

Re: Building endurance

1. Mostly in my lower forearm/wrist area.
2. Mustaine.
3. Mostly pivot at the wrist.
4. Dunlop Purple Gators .96mm

I'm going to try to change up the set list, I think that might help. We have a couple of songs with a slower tempo that I can throw in between the faster ones.

[Newc]

Re: Building endurance

If you're not doing solos, try the Hetfield position and see how that goes. I have the same trouble with "One" unless it's slung loooowwwww.
I also pivot at the wrist and pretty much lock my elbow/shoulder, but then I also use alternate picking.

You can also do downpicking endurance drills at various speeds (slow to fast), and if you don't have a noise gate, get one and set it fairly high so you don't have to use your picking hand to mute the strings between strokes (if you've got songs with staccato rhythms). Get one that's pedal controlled so it doesn't kill palm muted stuff, but that clips the other stuff. This takes the workload off your arm when you need it. It may end up sounding like a sampled guitar part, but it worked for Rob Zombie [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[guitarsjb]

Re: Building endurance

Thanks Newc, I appreciate your time. Will give your suggestions a try.

[jgcable]

Re: Building endurance

I would suggest practicing more days but less time. Try 6 days a week for 1 hour per day. Try loosening the grip on your pic. More up/down drills will increase your endurance.

[Newc]

Re: Building endurance

You can also adjust your pick grip to catch the strings going up and down the same way (flat as opposed to angled), so that you get the same intensity of attack but ease your workload.
I'm not sure if you can heat and twist a pick so that you're holding the "grip" half at a comfortable angle and the "attack" half is striking the strings flat, but it'd be something interesting to see. Then again that sort of thing would only work with a regular-sized or larger pick. Jazz IIIs and the like probably couldn't take it.

[Newc]

Re: Building endurance

And I'll agree with JG, but don't stay with just the 1 hour thing - increase it gradually by 15 minutes until you can go for 4 hours.

Try this for a 1-hour workout:
Set a metronome to something slow and comfortable (120 BPM?) and just hit one non-muted chord for every beep (set it to beep on half-notes if you can) using only downstrokes for the first set of 10 minutes.
For the next 10 minutes, alternate palm muted chords with non-muted chords - one muted, one non-muted, one muted, one non-muted, etc etc. Again only do one for each beep.
For the 3rd set, do only palm-muted chords, one for each beep.
For the 4th 10 minutes, hit two non-muted chords per beep, keeping the metronome set to the same tempo as before.
For the 5th set, alternate palm-muted with non-muted, one pair for each beep.
For the last set, do two palm-muted chords per beep.

There's your 1-hour for the day. Rest your arms for tomorrow's routine, where you increase the tempo by 10 BPM.

Do that for 6 days straight, one straight hour a day, and tell us if it works [img]/images/graemlins/poke.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[DumpyWumpy]

Re: Building endurance

Dunlop actually makes picks that are pretwisted like that called the Speedpick...

http://www.jimdunlop.com/products/pi...lty/index.html

[VitaminG]

Re: Building endurance

Dr Newcenstein's experimentation is extending beyond merely torturing innocent guitars now. [img]/images/graemlins/eek.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Shawn Lutz]

Re: Building endurance

Practice scales in every conceivable sequences with a metronome, pick every note and use alternate picking. Start out slow and gradually increase speed. This not only will help build your pick hand strength, it will improve your fret hand strength, chops, timing and overall technique.

The key is to start slow so you pick every note cleanly. Keep track of your bpm's that you are comfortable with and write it down. If you practice with a metronome for an hour or so a day I can grantee within a week you'll be improving and upping your endurance and bpm's.

[Ace]

Re: Building endurance

He's having rhythm problems, not fingering. While scales are good for fret hand work, they are pretty redundant for your rhythm hand. I would suggest that you warm up more before you play your faster songs. My band plays fast, but before I try and tackle one of our songs with the whole band I loosen up and stretch and get the blood flowing all the way down to my fingertips. It's a lot like working out. I can play guitar for 8 hours a day in the studio and still have energy.

[Shawn Lutz]

Re: Building endurance

True Ace but when you are using scales and alternate picking you are working out your picking hand. When I started playing I was blessed with some cool left hand speed and took advantage of it for a long while. I then wanted to do Di Meola stuff and could hit the notes but no way picking every one of them [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I built my picking hand up with scales and a mentonome.

[motorbrain3]

Re: Building endurance

do you feel tired from being 2 tense maybe?

just a thought

[guitarsjb]

Re: Building endurance

And Ace..I'm a she LOL...you guys have given me some great advice..will try it out.