Not too many that I know of like to hang out at the doctor’s office, so I'm going to give some good suggestions on warm-ups and exercises to create longevity in your drumming career.
The first tip I’d like to give you is whenever I do gigs, I’d like to keep my hands warm. It keeps the blood flowing, it keeps the fingers limber and everything. So many 10 minutes or some before I go on, I always soak my hands in warm water, not scalding water. You don’t want to burn yourself or anything, but just nice and warm water keeps the blood flowing and keeps your hands warm and loose.
One thing I like to do to warm up with is play harder patterns because I can’t play them too fast, so I won’t stretch any muscles the wrong way. And it gets my arms and my hands moving. So you could take something like the Pattaflafla or any rudiment that might be difficult for you to do at first and just practice it nice and slow. I did the same thing with the Flaflam when I was first learning it. I couldn’t go too fast so it works great as a warm-up.
So when you start to dissect your body, you could see what needs to function. Well, for drumming, you’ve got your fingers, wrists, arms, legs, shoulders, pretty well everything. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to start from the fingers. And you just basically want to stretch them out. It’s very important that you listen to what your body says. If you feel any pains, any sharps stabbing, that means stop. So what you do is just push your fingers back. It kind of stretches them out, warms them up, and then push down here. If you push down here, you’re not going to get any stretch. You’ve got to push on to that knuckle there and vice versa. You don’t want to crack them too much. Stretch them nicely. So you want to do this for about a minute or so per hand just to get it warm and stretched. It keeps them nice and warm and limber.
Next, we’re just going to do a few wrists stretches. You can see where the forearm muscles are connected to the wrist. You just want to go back and push it, push on this part here. You could actually do both at the same time which should be nice. You could do your fingers, push it a bit farther, and then get your wrists. But if you’re not feeling enough pull on the wrist, push down more on your hand like that because really pushing on this part is going to stretch this forearm muscle nicely, and then forward. Remember, always listen to your body. It will speak to you when it’s not enjoying what you’re doing to it. So both sides, a couple of minutes each, you should be able to start to feel being a little bit limber there, so nice wrist twirls as well. Remember, the wrists are the motors to drumming. You don’t want to lose these things. Remember, these warm-ups will help you to play at your full capacity. You want to relax physically, but don’t forget to relax mentally.
Next, moving down the line, we want to relax our shoulders, so just basic arm twirls. I always do this. It kind of stretches the packs out a bit. Make sure you’re not standing with someone and knock them on the head, but just kind of comfortably. You can feel how it stretches out. But being nice and warm in here because if you’re moving like that, you don’t want to be hurting some shoulders or pulling some muscles and walking around in a cast for a while, so do it slowly for a couple of minutes until you can feel the warmth coming.
Working down the body, we need to stretch out our caps. You know, all these things you could do when you’re sitting behind and stuff. But what if you’re back in the green room and you’re trying to warm up? You can’t have a drum set right there.
So basic lunges will help stretch out cap muscles. Keep your leg straight, get it nice and popped in here, and it helps your hamstring as well. Then you can bend your leg to really get more emphasis on your calf and vice versa. So you want to do that for a couple of minutes until you feel warmer and looser.
Remember, it’s not just physical relaxation but mental as well. And for relaxing mentally, one thing I’d like to do is before I do a gig, if I have seen the venue, it really helps. But to picture myself playing the gig with the bandmates, the audience, everything that might be taking place, it kind of helps me prep emotionally for it so that when I get into that environment, I’ve already been there. So it helps to relax mentally.
Next is a little stick spin that I’d like to do. Just grab both of your sticks in the middle so the weight is equal per side and just do a bit of that. It kind of warms up the forearm nicely, and then grabbing it and bending it a little bit further. Remember, any sharp pains means don’t do that. Both hands.
One last stretch I’d like to share with you is take your sticks like this back to back, hold them up like this. You take one hand into your chest and down. The other hand into your chest and down, so you get a twist of bit. You’ve got to be warmed before you get to this point, okay? So don’t do it too quickly. And then you go up, help stretch out your arms, your lats, and then go down but keep your legs straight. Don’t bend them because it will help for your hamstrings.
Just nice and relaxed, don’t forget to breathe, and then up. Now in getting to that position, what you want to do, your wrist might not be that flexible, so you’ve got to kind of work them into it because if you just go snap, crack, or pop, you could be in a lot of trouble. Just take it in, work it in. If it only goes this far, that’s fine. It’s just like regular stretches. After a while, that will give—always listening to what your arms are saying. Remember the option, warm up, play, have fun, or go hang out at the doctors.
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