Have you considered how weightlifting can be beneficial to your playing?
Two weeks after I started to lift weights I really felt my playing improved. Rhythm was better, the rolls were more smooth…
My explanation for this is that weightlifting improves the neuro-muscular junction, and thus better neural innervation, and strength helped my playing. This is most likely a short term benefit (but still worth it!), meaning that my playing will probably not benefit much more from lifting weights in the long run. Anyway, I can recommend everyone who is not regularly working out, to try, and to hear and feel the difference! I believe dumbbells are best for this (work the whole upper body), since they require more wrist-stabilisation. I also believe few repetitions with heavy weights is best for improving the neuro-muscular junction.
I’ve generally found that being in better shape leads to better playing. A couple of teachers have told me this, too, although I think they’re talking cardio-vascular shape. I pretty much just do aerobic exercise except for day-to-day stuff like splitting wood, ground work, etc. (not that that doesn’t count, it’s just not exercise for exercise’s sake).
Any sort of exercise helps, IMO. Aerobic stuff helps wind, weights make for strength
and ease in holding the flute. Playing a flute is an athletic activity.
Yes, up to a point. Overtraining, sleep deprivation, hypo-caloric (esp. low-carb) diets will fog your concentration, cause shortness of breath and jumpiness – none of which are conducive to tone, a relaxed style, creativity (variations), overall musicianship. Nonetheless I wholeheartedly recommend weight training to all flute players, lasses included.
Well I did improve a lot since i started going to the gym, but i didn’t connect the two things (i was improving even before). I guess it’s together a matter of time, practice, and gym…
Yes. The only thing I’d query is that, in common with gym advisers’ comments to me in the past, I think more reps of lower weights are better than fewer of higher weights, not only for building strength but for all the other benefits as well.
I started going to the gym approx 1 year ago. My upper body posture was not optimal before I started to work out (too many hours in front of the pc i guess). My shoulders were kind of bent too much forward, and my posture was not too good. I didn’t realize how big a deal body posture really was until I started to work out on a regular basis. Now my shoulders are in the proper position and my rib cage stands out from the rest of my body when I stand up straight.
With a better body posture I realized I could fit much more air into my loungs, as they were no longer compressed. And this has really made a big difference when it comes to playing the flute.
Highly recommend it
… more reps of lower weights are better than fewer of higher weights, not only for building strength but for all the other benefits as well.
Nope. A walk in the woods won’t do it either. Light weights don’t work the muscles in the same way and the benefits are concomitantly less. You’ll be wasting some time if you don’t max out (go to failure) several times in the course of a workout.
“… you should be lifting enough weight [so] that you can ONLY complete the desired number of reps. You should [only] be able to finish your last rep with difficulty…”
This can be true either if you lift more weight and do less reps, or if you lift less weight and do more rips, what matters is that the last rep should be difficult (but the muscles will work in a different way)… Anyway i would keep the reps somewhere between 6 and 14 (personally i go for 8-10). More reps also mean you’re using more air, but the body will be built less…
There are many many schools of thought (like diets) on what is considered the most effective rep-weight regime and whether lifting to or near failure is good or bad. For new lifters, any reasonable weight training program will produce results so long as they stick with it, and eat right and get enough sleep.
I was doing the P90X workouts for a while, and what was stressed on these videos was that if your primarily goal is increase in muscle size, you need to max out at about 10 reps. If your goal is an increase in lean muscle, you should go for whatever lower weight maxes you out at 14-15 reps.
I don’t know which of these would be better for a musician, if either one is better at all. All I know is that my playing suffered at first with all this because of jiggly arms! I might have been over-doing it…
