Sore arm

I'm pretty happy happy with my technique, but right now the biggest obstacle between me and that next level of speed is my arm. I need to build more endurance in it, it gets tired too easily (especially around my elbow and upper arm). Anyone know any excercices or anything to build up arm strength?


And no, I don't pick with my arm. It's mostly my wrist and fingers.

I don't know, but picking up stamina is just from playing, maybe you need to tense a little less. Ask some yoga teacher. Also, breathe, I've seen students stopping to breathe when they played fast, eventually, all their body us tense...

This might sound very stupid but you should try to strech/relax your arm before playing, I had the same problem.. But it helped.

if ya look in the tricks thing you'll see i sent
a thread with a real good two hand exercise on about the 4th o march i think. ya dont
say whether yer concerned with yer frettin hand or
yer pickin hand but its real good for both. i do it
every day. i also do chromatic practice and scales
and also i will hold a G chord and pick the E down,
A ^, D down. G ^, B down. E ^,B down, G ^, D down,
A ^, E down...for several minutes.do ya ever practice
6ths ?
-----------------------------------4-5-----7
--------------------------5--7-----------
--------------4-6-----7----------4-----6-7---
---4-6----7---------4---6------7-----
--------4---5-----7---------------
-5-----7-----------------------
strike em up&down alternatin and when ya get to the
top just keep goin backwards. great for loosenin up
and also makes ya be tighter with your picking.

Yeah some arm excercises before might help. I do a little, but maybe not enough.

River it's not a problem with either of my hands but my right arm, it just needs to get looser so I can start hitting those upper hundred marks on my metronome.

I didn't think this was different enough to warrant its own thread, but I was working on increasing my picking speed up too. I was having trouble getting as fast as I wanted (I'd play along with Master of Puppets and only managed 75% total speed) and then, last weekend, I had the good fortune to break my right collarbone (on st. Paddy's day, no less). So today I finally picked up my guitar and managed a very painful 20 minutes of playing. Even after six days of not playing, I was noticeably slower. Does anyone have any suggestions for playing faster? I want to be able to play those eighth-note jackhammer runs a la James Hetfield, but have had no luck thus far.

If your left arm is getting tired fast (Can't do all the finger taps to eruption without cramping or doggin' out?) then you need to exercise.
#1. Use a raquet ball and squeeze it in the palm of your hand a few minutes a day.
#2. More importantly you need to learn to relax. With accuracy comes speed. Work on accuracy first and speed will come naturally.

Now if it's your RIGHT arm...that's pretty much the same deal. I got tennis elbow when I stayed up all night trying to learn Eugine's Trick Bag. Curls will help that. If you're just trying to break the sound barrier on the metronome the try a different pendulem. Are you using your elbow and moving your whole forearm as fast as you can? If so try just moving your wrist.

Over all the BEST exercise a guitarest can get is PLAYING. Play steele string acoustic when you're in the mood to exercise. It makes electric so much easier.

P.S. FretSlug is correct. Stretch a little before playing/excercising.

[Edited by SwinginDick on 03-24-2002 at 03:25 AM]

i cant believe they let you have the screen name "SwingDick"