Muscle Imbalances and Poor Posture: A Dangerous Cycle

Using a muscle group more than its counterpart leads to imbalances in strength, flexibility, resting length, and muscle efficiency between these two groups. These muscular imbalances can lead to poor posture, pain, and injury. Instrumentalists are particularly vulnerable to developing muscle imbalances due to the repetitive motions and long hours with insufficient breaks that seem to go hand-in-hand with playing a musical instrument.

Playing a musical instrument involves a great deal of repetitive motion. This can lead to certain muscles becoming overused, shortened, and tight while their opposing muscles become underused (or mis-used) and lengthened. The short, tight muscles can pull the body’s joints slightly out of alignment, causing pain and microtrauma on the joint’s surfaces (which can lead to joint degeneration or overuse injuries).  When joints are misaligned, the body is at a greater risk of any number of musculoskeletal injuries.

Muscle imbalances can cause improper posture in much the same way. Interestingly, poor posture can, in turn, lead to muscular imbalances.

Reduce Your Injury Risk

To combat the muscle imbalances caused by playing an instrument, you must target two overlapping goals: (1) correct the muscle imbalances already present and (2) prevent muscle imbalances from being caused in the future. Additionally, if poor posture is contributing to the body’s muscular imbalances, consistently and deliberately positioning the body in proper alignment throughout the day is an excellent way to help correct these imbalances.

Correct the muscle imbalances already present

To fix the imbalances already present in your body, you need to approach the problem in 2 stages:

1. Stretch the short and tight muscles before you
2. Strengthen/retrain the weak/under-used muscles

Your stretches should be static stretches. Follow the rules of stretching and stretch every day after you play or exercise. Typically, you will be stretching flexor muscles (almost all are located on the front of your body) and strengthening/retraining extensor muscles (almost all are on the back of your body).

Prevent muscle imbalances from being caused in the future

• Use proper posture all the time. This includes playing posture, too. Conduct an ergonomics assessment to help you adjust your playing posture. Avoid curled-up positions (including when you’re sleeping). These positions take the muscles that tend to be shortened during the day and keep them shortened overnight, making them constantly tighten up.
• Proactively stretch the muscles that you’re using the most (typically, flexors) and strengthen the muscles your instrument forces you to ignore (typically, extensors). These stretches and exercises will be the same ones that you used when you were correcting your current muscular imbalances. Here are some examples of good upper body stretches for marchers, instrumentalists who play with their arms elevated, and instrumentalists who play with their arms lower.
• Take breaks from your playing and move around. If you sit while you play, get up out of your chair and walk around. These breaks can be a good time to stretch your lower body and low back. These breaks are also a great time to have a nutritious snack or refill your water bottle.
• Cardiovascular exercise (running, using the elliptical, using a rowing machine – just be careful the machine doesn’t rip up your hands!) and weight training (wear weightlifting gloves to protect the skin on your palms) can help you use muscle groups that don’t get used while playing your instrument. You do not need to be lifting like a bodybuilder or training for a marathon to reap the benefits of cross-training.

Most Common Muscle Imbalances for Instrumentalists

In general, playing an instrument leads to short, tight flexors and lengthened, improperly-used extensors.

Specifically, the short, tight muscles tend to be:

• Finger and wrist flexors (located on the palm-side of the forearm)
• Pectorals (chest muscles) and other muscles crossing the anterior (front) shoulder
• Biceps
• Hip flexors (for instrumentalists who sit while playing)
• Hamstrings (for instrumentalists who sit while playing)

The lengthened and/or improperly-used muscles tend to be:

• Scapular retractors (they’re located between your shoulder blades and they pinch them together)
• Finger and wrist extensors (located on the back of the forearm)
• Triceps
• Abdominal and gluteal muscles tend to be improperly-used