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Gerry Hastie
Feb-04-2010, 3:56pm
Hi Folks

I have a pain in my hand that develops shortly after playing. It occurs in the muscle that comes down from your thumb that would help form a 'cup' in your palm or the flexor pollicis brevis for those of you with some anatomy knowledge. It occurs in my fretting hand (my left).

It has been noticeable now for a couple of weeks and is getting annoying. I'm considering the following:

1) Rest: not my favourite option as that means no mandolin playing; and whilst the thought of that drives me nuts I'm prepared to give it up for a few weeks for the sake of not knackering my hand completely.

2) Position Changing: I think I'm guilty of too much thumb showing especially when gripping chords. I am thinking of shortening my strap so that hand is in a better position.

3) I would describe my Eastman 505 as having a V shaped neck profile and wonder if a thicker neck would help. I do not develop this pain when playing guitar. Luckily I am saving for a new mandolin so getting a new one is an option for me. I realise I'm going to have to try a few to find that suits me.

Any advice or comments would be most welcome.

Pete Hicks
Feb-04-2010, 4:39pm
Gerry,
It sounds like you are squeezing too hard with your thumb toward the palm. You may be using much more force than is necessary to form the chords. There is obviously some serious tension involved, which I think you can isolate and eliminate. Try the strap adjustment, too. If you hold the mandolin higher, it usually feels better ergonomically. I don't think your thumb showing is the problem. As for the neck width, that is very personal. I prefer as narrow a neck as possible, others like fatter necks.
No matter what, stress and tension are the enemies, and relaxation is the goal. Check your right hand as well. If you are gripping the neck too tight, you may have the 'gorilla' grip on the pick, too.
I hope some of these ideas help.:mandosmiley:

Ivan Kelsall
Feb-05-2010, 12:30am
Hi Gerry - Like me,you probably hold your Guitar in a much different way than you hold your Mandolin. I hold both my Banjo & Guitar in the 'vee' between my thumb & first finger,my Mandolin i hold (well,try to !) with my thumb resting on the back of the neck.More often that not i can do this ok,but every now & again,i slide my thumb around & i'm holding my Mandolin 'Guitar style'. There's much less pressure on the thumb doing it that way,& for a space of time,instead of resting up too much,try that way of doing it.It looks a bit untidy on a Mandolin,but what the heck !,
Ivan

MandoPheel
Feb-05-2010, 1:07am
I had similar pain in the same muscle as well as pain in the tendons of my fingers at the point they cross the knuckles after significantly increasing my daily practice time. I tried every possible hand position I could think of and the only thing that worked was giving it a rest. By rest I don't mean quitting cold turkey- in fact, it's pretty important to play a little to keep things stretched out or you'll really get stiff and it will get irritated easily when you start playing again. At this point, probably any hand position is going to hurt. So I would recommend limiting your playing until the soreness goes away and then focus on finding a comfortable, relaxed hand position that keeps the soreness from coming back. Of course, this is just my opinion FWIW.

Hayes Griffin
Feb-05-2010, 1:44am
Hey Gerry,

I'll agree with Ivan on this one. Placing your thumb in the middle of the neck relieves a lot of the strain on the muscles in your hand by allowing the hand to curve more naturally around the neck of the instrument. Also, (and many people think this is irrelevant) try to notice if there is any tension in your neck and shoulders. If there is, try to relax those muscles a bit. Many of the instructors I've studied with over the years have told me that this can be a fairly common cause to many pain problems in the hands. Last year, I had much the same problem as you're experiencing, and it ended up being because my left shoulder and bicep would clench up every time I picked up the instrument. Go figure... Anyway, hope this helps and happy pickin!

- Hayes

Rob Gerety
Feb-05-2010, 8:48am
I don't know the answer. But I do get a bit confused as a new comer to mandolin when people describe how they rest their hand around the neck. I read a awful lot of professional advice counseling me to hold they neck as I would a fiddle when playing melody or lead lines - the thumb brushing along the top binding of the fretboard - resisting the natural (for me) inclination to allow the neck to rest deep in the V between my thumb and first finger. Almost hovering lightly rather than gripping. Do you guys actually plant the pad of your thumb on the back of the neck like you might do playing a bar chord on a guitar?

bmac
Feb-05-2010, 9:01am
You didn't mention how long you've been playing or how long you play daily.... I suffered painful tendons in my fretting hand for perhaps a year after starting but with a steady playing of roughly three hours per day the pain eventually went away and I haven't had a problem since.. By the way... My doctor suggested exercise... and in my case it worked.

mandocrucian
Feb-05-2010, 9:18am
Gerry,

Take and post a couple pictures of your LH hand playing the chords, etc. that trigger the pain. A good picture can be a lot more revealing than a worded description.

NH

jim_n_virginia
Feb-05-2010, 9:49am
try playing with the mandolin in different positions by raising or lowering your strap. It's worth a try. I was getting numbness in my fingers and eventually figured out by lowering the mandolin it helped a lot.

good luck!
:mandosmiley:

Gerry Hastie
Feb-06-2010, 7:48am
Hi Folks

Thanks for the input. I've decided to pull the strap up a bit and watch how hard I'm gripping the mandolin. I think tension was the key source of my problem in my left shoulder and therefore my fretting hand. Raising the strap actually makes my shoulder more relaxed as my upper arm naturally now rests more into my body. I'll see how this goes and if the problem doesn't resolve I'll post again with some photos of my hand on the neck.

Thanks again for all contributions.

mandocrucian
Feb-06-2010, 4:57pm
In past mando workshops, I'd give out a photo handout sheet with five different wrist stretches to take home (to help remember them) after the class would be shown them at the beginning of the session.

These are great for reducing tension in both hands. There was a period about 9 or 10 years ago when I had taekwando classes two nights a week and then went to aikido (at another studio) on two other nights. The aikido folks always went through the stretches at the opening of the class - a necessity, really, to help prevent and minimize hand injuries, as you were getting grabbed and thrown with those same grips - you definitely wanted to be limbered up first.

I began doing these regularly every day, and after a couple of months I noticed that my electric guitar-style vibrato (on 8 string acoustic mandolin) and bending was sounding better than it ever had in the past. I finally deduced that the tension reduction through all the stretches help me to finally find the point of optimal fretting pressure - and with the elimination of any excessive downward pressure, I was no longer fighting myself pushing or pulling the strings from side-to-side. After that was when I began teaching the stretches to my students. (I had several students that had wrist soreness issues dues to excessive tension or from some previous sports-related injury, and the stretches helped to alleviate that problem.)

Try these out: Some aikido wrist stretches (http://www.aikido-world.com/highlights/technical%20_tips/wrist-list.htm)

Niles Hokkanen

HddnKat
Feb-06-2010, 5:26pm
Stretching - ha! who woulda' thought (;)) - I haven't run into this problem when playing mandolin, but I get that familiar pain in the ball of my thumb, big time, when playing rhythm guitar. I play in a praise band, and every now and again we have a song that requires bar chords through about the entire song - by the end my hand and wrist are about to lock up and leave me in total rebellion. I"ll try these stretches - I'm sure it'll help.

On the mandolin pain, OP did not mention - are you playing melodies. mostly chop chords, what? I do notice that if I'm choppin' for along time in the same position that my muscles tend to cramp up - not so much if I'm picking melodies and flexing my fingers back and forth a bunch.