My wife was doing some focused exercises with her forearms and I noticed she had much more range of motion in forearm supination and pronation of the forearm than I do. Especially with the arm outstretched.
These (below) are examples with care taken so there is absolutely no rotation at the shoulder, all movement in the forearm.
I have noticed strain trying to rotate my fretting hand while playing and I think I like the classical position to play because it reduces the need for rotation in the areas of the fretboard I use most.
If I try to play in a standard âcowboyâ style, with the guitar on my right thigh and the head over the left knee, neck closer to parallel to the floor, I have to really tuck in my shoulder and try to use it to rotate out and improve my supination.
Curious what others experience. If you try, make sure not to allow your shoulder to contribute to the movement. Supination is palm up, pronation is palm down.
I can rotate my palms from supine to pronated with my elbows barely moving, let alone my shoulders. Since everyoneâs anatomy is different, I think you should try some of those exercises as well, or others aimed at improving the range of motion of joints and the flexibility of tendons. And of course, seek professional advice for all of these.
I definitely agree that I need to work on this. Good thing I am pretty much the expert in this kind of thing.
I just didnât see and admit the issue until I saw my wife having so much more range. It makes sense now, and I can see why many others seem to be more comfortable in certain positions than I am.
Not that this has been a major crisis in my guitar playing. Just identified an area I could work on that might help a little. The classical guitar position is a perfectly happy workaround.
Interestingly, it is the same with both my arms, so it isnât handedness tension.
I have about the same on my left as your right. I play guitar right-handed. I am quite ambidextrous in most things - I can use chopsticks, hit a baseball, throw, etc with either hand, only slightly better with right.
My right supination has been getting tighter (less mobility) since I started guitar 3 years ago. I was nearly equal before that. I have also seen that finger stretch is increased on fretting hand, but no change on picking hand. This also has changed since guitar as I used that as a 9-inch estimation (thumb to pinky) when I didnât have a tape or ruler and it worked on either hand. Now, I can use the left as 10-inch and right as 9.
I did stop workouts about the same time I started guitar. These helped keep shoulders back and flexibility in otherwise stationary joints. I need to go back to working out. It was a condition for my last guitar, and I have still to make good on the agreement!
About 2 years ago, I moved from the âcowboyâ position towards the more classical position; where the guitar is either on the left leg, or more centred on the body.
Its had a profoundly positive effect on my playing, particularly in lead playing / switching between rhythm and lead. where more refined movement and accuracy is required.
I think the key, at least for me, was the immediate dropping of the shoulder to a more natural, and importantly, more relaxed position; resulting in positive effect all the way down the arm into the hand.
For lead playing in particularly, where its a complex combination of supination/ pronation movement, and radial/ulnar deviation, being relaxed, natural, tension free is the absolute most critical thing.
I look back at older videos of myself, around 2022- before I switched to a more centred positioning - and can clearly see how cocked my shoulder was. I can almost âseeâ the restriction and tension running all the way down my arm and into my hand. The change, over time, freed up everything, and alliwed me to concentrate on basic picking/strumming technique development.
My shoulder is now just doing its job; moving my whole arm up and down the strings, like an elevator, while the wrist does all the complex stuff.
Its also allowed me to discover that Iâm more naturally an âupslant pickerâ ( so more toward the pronation side), and use that to my advantage when working out picking strategies.
Iâm convinced that my technique development would be nowhere near where it is today if I hadn"t made this change. I think I would have been still fighting against the tension, perhaps even still oblivious to it, and likely frustrated at what I was doing wrong, and why.
That is interesting. I wonder if the other position was holding you back, or did you find its limitations as you progressed and found ways to adapt? Sort of a âchicken or eggâ question.
I donât have a range of motion issue, but Iâd be the first to recommend the classical position. I think itâs more comfortable, and it puts the instrument in a position which minimizes body tension.
The whole process was driven by the following;
As I started to develop and play more difficult pieces, I became increasingly aware of both fretting and picking hand issues; related to actual technique, articulation, accuracy, speed, increased tension, and a feeling of being restricted in movement. Plus some technical skills werent developing as Iâd liked, despite all the practice. It all just started to feel âwrongâ.
It was more than justâŚ" oh, Im not progressing fast enough,âŚI should be better etcâŚ". It was a very physical thing. Ive always filmed myself, and could literally see the tension and struggle , so thats where it started.
Looking back,this was probably all somewhat masked prior to around the 2 year mark, as I was playing more basic things, many of which placed less demands on accuracy, articulation, and speed.
So, something had to change. So I started researching and investigating, and came up with the position switch. I knew it would feel weird at first, so committed to a month to trial it. After about a week, I knew I was on a winner, and have never looked back.
My transition was simpler. I started to play classical guitar and like how that felt better, so went with it. Every so often I think how nice it would be to just throw a guitar over my leg without a lift and why shouldnât I play with the neck lower. I try it again, it feels uncomfortable and back I go.
Classical position isnât that hard to manage, all my guitars, even my electric, have lifts that just live attached to them. If I am somewhere to pick up someone elseâs guitar, or in a guitar store, I can always find something to put under a foot. Not my preferred, but fine in a pinch.
Never used lifts. Then again, Iâm not playing classical guitar.
Although the guitar sort of rests on my left leg in a classical type position, its the strap that really holds it in position; probably more in the centre-left position.
And at 6â3," with pretty long levers, I suppose physically, this was always going to be my optimal position.
I can still play fine on my right leg, but wouldnât really play anything of a more advanced or technical nature in that position.
Easiest way to check pronation/supination is to do the test with the elbow at your side.
This takes the shoulder out of the equation, and the ulna/radius can still act in the normal manner.
The rotation comes purely from the radius rotating across the ulna. For those who arenât aware, the radius (the forearm bone on the thumb side) doesnât attach and articulate with the humerus (upper arm bone) but is held against the ulna by an annular ligament - basically itâs like strapping the radius to the ulna, close to the humerus.
The movement we see is the hand moving - this is because the wrist/hand is attached to the radius, not the ulna.
Problems with pronation/supination often occur when there has been a fracture of the radius. When the radius rotates around the ulna, it is effectively doing so diagonally, so if a bone has broken and healed even slightly out of place the radius can bump against the ulna and stop the rotation. Ulna fractures can also result in similar problems.
Then thereâs the stuff weâre born with. Just glad my arms arenât like my legs, because they are seriously wonky!
editâŚ
For those who have a limiting problem with supinating the fretting hand, you couldâŚyou know, come over to the dark side and start playing left handed
In my experience at least, lack of range of motion is often caused by parasitic tension.
In your case, if the pronation muscles are shortened by trigger points, injury, or just plain habits of a lifetime, the supination muscles will have to fight against that tension, thus reducing range of motion.
I have successfully improved my range of motion with a combination of gentle, gravity assisted stretching and focusing on ârelaxing into the stretchâ.
Just now, I did a quick experimentâŚI held a common carpentry hammer with my arm in the supinated position, resting on a table. I let gravity pull the hammer down as far as my arm muscles would allowâŚmaybe 10 repetitions.
This seemed to noticeably increase my range of motionâŚmaybe 5 or 10 degrees.
Doing something like this for a couple of minutes every day over a period of weeks can lead to significant increases. For example, for years, Iâd been unable to do a flat footed squat. But now - at age 67 - I canâŚusing similar a technique.
Funny! I am actually left handed and at first thought that was part of the problem. We are often a little more restricted on the dominant hand. However, both my arms are quite similar in their range, so maybe just how I am.
I have done a lot with my forearms and hands over the years. I do think it is one of those things that I could either just live with or start working on with stretching and some strengthening. It isnât really inhibiting much. But it would be nice for a little more range.
Oh, and no pain at all. my pain comes from my shoulders and is not from playing the guitar. That is also benefitting from the classical position for playing and smaller guitars.
Straps I hate. It is a quirk that I hate anything hanging over my shoulders. For some reason this causes neck discomfort and has since I was a kid, long before all my neck injuries (of which I have had several, but no surgeries). When I was in my residency and they required we wear those long white coats, I was miserable. Even if I carried nothing in the pockets. I think it is psychological, personally.
Interesting you mention the neck problems and the strap/coat thing.
I have the same problem - any jacket that isnât lightweight causes pain. Straps can compress the nerve, but then Iâve got a suspected tear in the brachial plexus, which makes controlling the fretting hand real fun
As TBushell mentioned, you probably know the stretches to do which can often help. muscle imbalance can be a simple issue to overcome, and even just relaxing the arm and doing jelly hand exercises (rotating rapidly without strain) can help.
âŚI nearly wrote rotting rapidly, but that exercise is strictly for zombies.
And to answer your original question, my supination/pronation is ok, but sometimes a bit tight on the fretting hand, so a few jelly hands works.
