LPT: Avoid shoulder injury - beware playing in chairs w/arms

[Joe]

A couple of weeks ago the shoulder of my fretting hand started bothering me. I didn't think too much about it, just figured I'd tweaked it somehow. Well, it didn't go away and I eventually realized it's injured/inflamed because of the way I have to hold the guitar/bass while playing in my office chair.

 

Because it has non-movable integrated arms, I'm forced to keep my elbow and arm at an unnatural position on the outside of the chair. Your body can deal with some of that nonsense, but if you play too much with an unnatural position like that you will injure yourself. Since I realized the problem I've been sitting on a large pillow to elevate myself above the arms.

 

More generally, be aware of how you hold your guitar and avoid bad habits or positions that will lead to injury.

[DevStereo]

@@Joe Thanks man, i've been wondering about the pain in my fret hand and shoulder. I'm playing on my office chair but slightly moved out of the chair and it's not really comfortable to play in such a position to be honest. I started to realize after playing an average of 1 hour to feel some weird pain in my shoulder. When i started to play Rocksmith after like 5 minutes of practice i felt pain in my fret hand probably because i was a freshman and not used to play a guitar tho. So the last time i felt this weird pain in my shoulder was probably yesterday after playing some cool cdlc songs for about 2 hours and in between little breaks to grab a cigarette.

Especially when i played some Tremolo in "Bring Me The Horizon - Chelsea Smile" such a freakin long constant tremolo... My whole arm felt like someone hit my arm with a steel bar.

Kinda felt stiff in the shoulder, so i'm little curious about that if my sitting position is causing this. If so, i'll need to change that

 

EDIT:

I forgot to mention how i sit while playing. I hope i can describe it right and you guys understand what i mean... [emoji28]

While i'm playing i kinda bend over so my chest is touching the guitar body, well more like just the right chest side touching the body of my guitar and while playing i like to look down on my fretboard and picking hand so that i'm able to hit the right notes, string and the right rhythm.

My Head moves probably weird too simply because i'm constantly switching from my desktop to my guitar, that's probably not good at all. [emoji53]

[Mostly Rancid]

My position for playing the guitar is awful , I've learnt to play it in an office chair while reclining ( sometimes with my feet up on the amp ). I know it's wrong but I have a really lazy nature lol but I have stopped using a bag of frozen peas on my fretting hand when it aches so I can play more.