Originally Posted by: rbh4161

Just starting lessons with an acoustic guitar and have reached the "spider legs warm-up" lesson. I find that my ring, middle, and index fingers do not space properly on the first three frets. They pull together, especially when attempting to put the right pressure point on the string so that the adjacent string is not "contaminated". I can separate and hold them with my right hand but even then the pressure points on the tips of the fingers are thrown off. Are there any exercises for stretching/strengthening fingers or is It that I just may be physically/structurally unable to play the guitar and have to give-up my goal. By the way, I am a very active senior citizen in superior condition, but maybe not for the guitar.

This seems to me to be an odd problem. Perhaps you have never been in the habit of splaying your fingers. This is a training issue. Practice just splaying your your fingers. After you can routinely splay your fingers then splay them and curl them while splayed. As you become trained in that you can then transfer the action to the fret board. Sure it will take you longer to establish this unfamiliar action, but I don't see it as "the end to guitar playing". Learning any new skill is about making your body do things it is not used to.