Taking Care of Your Body as an Adult Violin Student: Avoiding Injury and Soreness.

One of the primary advantages of learning violin as a child is youth. Kids often complain if they are made to practice for long periods of time, but you don’t hear them whine about their aching lower backs, necks, or rotator cuffs.

Personally, I’d give anything to have the resilience of my younger self’s musculoskeletal system. Even a tiny change to my shoulder pad height will cause some fresh hell in my neck and shoulders.

A chiropractor once told me that as aging adults we keep trying to adapt our environment to fit the needs of our bodies, rather than changing our bodies to better function in our environment.

I needed to hear this message as I am a supreme life-hacker, adapting everything around me to accommodate the particular pain of the month. While my life-hacking prowess has been a huge advantage in developing highly efficient practice strategies, it has been disadvantageous to maintaining a strong, flexible musculature able to withstand the hours of practice I wished I could do.

Important lessons I’ve learned from many health care professionals

Over the past two decades I have seen a physiatrist, an orthopedic surgeon, two hand specialists, and a host of physical therapists and chiropractors. In this blog I will share the bits of wisdom I’ve learned over the years in hopes that you take away some potential life altering tidbit that will greatly extend the amount of time you spend playing pain free. I also hope to save you many $$$ by preventing any need to consult with a specialist. Of course if you are experiencing severe or recurring pain, see a specialist!

1. A Strong Core Frees the Limbs

I went to my first physical therapist in the early 90s because I was experiencing pain and fatigue in my forearms. I was in graduate school at the time and between personal practice, orchestra rehearsals and ensemble sessions I was often playing 6-8 hours a day.

My violin teacher at the time suggested I see a physical therapist, which I did. I remember wondering how the plank exercises she had me do were going to help my forearms.

She told me that when the core is weak, the arms work harder, and in my case, holding the violin and bow for long periods of time began to wear out my arms. She was right. Try this at home:

I was sent home with exercises to build core strength and while I lost those specific instructions long ago, I remember some of the exercises and have found Youtube demonstration videos for you to use.

2. Live Symmetrically

More recently I have seen therapists and chiropractors for sore neck muscles, sore enough that they often grow into headaches. Maintaining a healthy neck has and will always be something I need to prioritize. It is difficult to undo 55+ years of playing the violin, but there are simple (not so simple) ways to keep neck muscles in check so that I can continue playing with relative comfort.

How do you sit and stand?

I feel most comfortable working on my laptop, lounging in the corner of my L shaped couch, criss-cross apple sauce. I’m doing that right now as I write this post. Unfortunately, this is pure evil for the neck.

The muscles holding up your head are over working and can become quite sore. Keeping a symmetrical posture is an act of kindness to your neck. And no kidding, I had a physical therapist, keen on education, give me a sitting lesson at $100/hour. I had to roll up onto my sits bones until I got it right, which I would have thought possible with a few rolls. Nope. We spent the entire session on it. Here’s a Youtube video that best demonstrates my experience.

While the concept of sitting on the sits bones is simple enough, doing it regularly is not. Slouching, crossing legs, and lounging back against a chair is the default posture for most everyone. But do your best and try to assume the best sitting or standing posture as often as you can. It will let your back and neck muscles work as they are designed to do.

3. Always Think: Bowling Ball on a Toothpick

Clearly AI had to produce this image as a bowling ball could never balance on a toothpick.

But this is a common analogy for the way we should imagine the ideal placement of our heads over our spine.

After my $100 sitting lesson, my next “lesson” was to look at a scrapbook full of baby pictures. She had a collection of torn out magazines pages showing the posture of sitting babies. She asked me to take notice of their natural head placement. Babies’ heads are so disproportionately large that if they weren’t directly over their little spines, they’d flop right over.

When babies turn their heads or look down, their heads still stay centered and balanced. Think about “pivoting” and “rotating” the head INSTEAD of “leaning” or “craning”.

But here’s the problem: most adult heads aren’t perched above their spines. Years of poor postural habits have placed our heads too far forward. For many of us, our heads can’t perch directly over our spine.

My latest physical therapist laugh-said, “Thanks to laptops and cell phones, my line of work will never know feast or famine. Just feast.”

4. A Few Good Strengthening Exercises Go a Long Way

Looking down at phones and laptops is unlikely to change anytime soon. However, what we can change is our posture. With specific exercises, we can gradually improve our posture, which, in turn, will help build the stamina needed for the unique challenge of holding a violin between our head and shoulder.

The videos below include beneficial exercises similar to those prescribed for me by various physical therapists. They focus on developing the muscles needed to keep our spines upright, allowing our heads to rest more naturally on top.

5. Don’t just Floss Your Teeth. Floss Your Nerves

Nerve flossing, also called neural gliding, was first introduced to me by a hand specialist I saw over 20 years ago. I complained of pain in my arms and he said, “We can always do surgery, or you can do these exercises at home”. I was like, “Yeah, I think I’ll do the exercises.”

The goal with nerve flossing is to gently move the nerve through surrounding tissue without overstretching it. Turns out, nerves can actually shorten over time, just like other parts of our aging bodies, leading to numbness and pain. My doctor didn’t specifically call it “nerve flossing,” and I’m pretty sure I didn’t have full-on carpal tunnel, but the exercises he recommended were almost identical to the ones in the videos below. Even if you’re not dealing with major arm or hand issues, these exercises are a great way to prevent overuse injuries and keep everything moving smoothly!

6. Stretch to Reduce Effort

Stiff muscles are much harder to move, and for the longest time I believed the only way to achieve ease while playing was through a thorough warm-up: working the muscles in repeated patterns, like tapping fingers or playing fast bow strokes. It never crossed my mind that stretching the entire body could significantly speed up the process of feeling “warmed-up.” While this might seem obvious to most people, it was a revelation to me.

The “light-bulb” moment happened one day when I felt strain playing high on the G string. It was effortful to keep my arm far under the instrument to reach those high positions.

Then I remembered a physical therapist mentioning that people tend to neglect stretching their chest muscles, focusing instead on their backs. I tried a stretch: with my violin’s scroll securely against a wall, I pulled my arms back, reaching toward the space behind me and breathing deeply. With each breath, the tightness around my collarbones eased, and when I returned to playing, it felt like my arm could float effortlessly into those high positions.

7. Work with your chin rest/shoulder pad to achieve an ideal set up.

Since launching Violin Lab I’ve switched my shoulder rest four times and my chin rest three times. While I think I’ve finally found the ideal set up, I can’t promise I’ll give up searching for Violin Hold nirvana. I want to my violin to feel weightless, defying the pull of gravity as it rests steadfast on my shoulder.

As a teacher, I wish there was a one size fits all with violin accouterment, or that I could look at some one and know what style of chin rest and shoulder pad would be their best choice. But alas, finding the perfect equipment for a comfortable fit is a personal journey.

The good news is that now there are many products on the market, in all price rages, that offer versatility and customization.

My current set up is:

• The Wave Chin Rest comes in two models and four heights, and since it’s hard to know which is the right one for you, you can receive up to four different models and heights for a 30-day trial.

•The Korfker shoulder rest for me was worth the price tag. It is infinitely adjustable and light as a feather, however if it’s outside your budget, there are other shoulder pads that have a offer a high degree of customization.

•The Bon Musica shoulder rest was the OG customizable shoulder rest on the market. I loved when it first came out, but the hardware wore down quickly and it is quite heavy.

8. Hack your way to comfort

I would love to say that I practice what I preach each and every day, and that as a result I have no discomfort or soreness playing the violin. Well, if you know me, you know that’s not true. I most often forego important exercises that would keep me in top playing shape.

However, I am now much more aware of postural issues and have worked to correct many old bad habits. Combined with the simple hacks I’ll show you in the video below, these changes help me play and practice without injury or fatigue. With this added support, I can freely express music as my heart directs.