Beating Carpal Tunnel Wrist Pain - How Pianists Even the Score

Musical instruments were never designed to be ergonomic and some of them wreak havoc on our bodies, particularly for keyboard and string players. Pain in the hands and wrists, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, is one of the most common conditions as almost without exception proficiency in an instrument requires rapid movement of the fingers or hands.

Up to 80% of professional musicians experience pain and injury in their playing career and these are primarily through occupational overuse, repetitive strain injury (RSI), and/or carpal tunnel syndrome.

The main focal areas for piano players are hands, wrists, shoulders, neck and upper back, and the player should try to achieve efficient, stress-free movement to minimize pain and injury, and use carpal tunnel wrist exercises to build up the body's strength.

Stretching

Stretching the hands at a young age can often cause issues and lead to serious problems in later life. It's recommended you don't overstretch your child's hands during piano practice.

Before you begin to play piano, though, you should perform some light stretches of the fingers and wrists to warm the muscles up.

Hand position

The correct technique is to have the back of the hands horizontal with the fingers falling gently onto the keys. For this, you will need the correct height stool. This also throws up the problems of leverage for your shoulders as they will have to work to lift your hands for a long period of time while remaining in the same position. This is called static muscular activity and inhibits blood flow. One way to get around this is to over-exaggerate your movements, lifting your hands high or letting them drop down load when they're not being used. It may look unnecessarily flamboyant, but it works.

Awkward positions weaken your playing, so always ensure that your wrists are not unduly held at extreme angles and playing positions. The aim is for your forearms and wrists to be perpendicular to the keys being played.

Using excessive force on the keys can also result in carpal tunnel syndrome. The standard piano key only takes around 50g of weight to push down.

Rapid and repetitive playing can cause carpal tunnel syndrome. The muscles in the arm and wrist become inflamed and cause irritation of the median nerve and tendons that pass through the carpal tunnel in the wrist. The tendons are the weak link in the pianist's wrist as they are the most likely to get inflamed by rubbing against other tendons and ligaments.

Shoulders experience problems related to static muscular activity. Strengthening the shoulders will alleviate this.

The neck is often craned forwards to read the music, or through bad posture. This in turn puts stress on the upper back and can cause a permanent hunched back if left long enough. In this case, postural realignment, massage, and strengthening techniques should be used.

Curing pain associated with playing piano

Removing the cause of the pain is important, and the body does have an amazing capacity to heal itself. A period of complete rest may be required in the most severe cases. Conditioning of the body, though, should be the main goal.

Primarily the pianist can be looked at as an athlete. Athletes must perform physical movements over and over in the most efficient way, and their bodies must be strong enough to withstand the requirements. Proper training - physical, postural and mental - is important to undertake to achieve the best result as a piano player.