The Best Solution for Thumb Fatigue & Dropping Sticks!
You probably caught the video a couple of weeks ago about “why we drop sticks” and how to avoid it. I started thinking, though, about some additional tips that I didn’t mention…
Have you ever dealt with thumb fatigue?
…that kind of pain in your thumb joint that often results from squeezing too tightly on the sticks when you play? This was something that I began to realize I was facing regularly. One time it got so bad that my hands ached for two days after a gig. I knew I had to do something…but what? I began to find some solutions, some mental and some physical. I made a video about this last summer, which I encourage you to check out if you haven’t seen it. (I’ll throw a link down below!)
If you feel like there’s a grip issue behind your dropping sticks, one of the thumb-fatigue solutions might help.
I noticed that the only time I had bad thumb pain while playing was when my hands were cold or dry. If they were clammy or sweaty at all, I had no problems. If they were warm I didn’t have any trouble. Evidently the sticks were literally slipping out of my hands when my palms were dry. This resulted in me squeezing too tight at the pivot point in order to compensate, which in turn wore out my thumb joints. This caused enough fatigue to weaken my grip, which just made things worse.
I started putting on lotion before playing to moisten up my hands. PROBLEM SOLVED! I also made a habit of not washing my hands right before playing, because that would clean my hands of the lotion remnants and natural skin oils that would then help me with grip. Yeah that sounds gross, but you do what you gotta do.
If you’re having any kind of issue remotely similar to this, give this a try and see if it doesn’t improve your grip. If you find that there are still issues, you might have to put some extra focus into making sure that you’re keeping your grip relaxed…even if you’re excited or nervous. Form that habit of keeping yourself relaxed even in the heat of the gig.
Check out the video! We go over all of this, and I hope some of these solutions might help you out.
Take Care,
Stephen
