Warm-ups to Prevent RSI!

One of the reasons I did not subscribe to Pebber's online lessons sooner was, sadly, that I was scared by trolling reviews on sites such as Reddit, which suggested that he teaches scalpel picking which causes Repetitive Strain Injury. While I am not an attorney, some of the remarks that insinuate that many students have to be retrained after injuring themselves seem libelous.

Given these negative reviews, it is interesting to compare some of the Pebber's preliminary exercises for his Module One and Module Two Introductory Videos with exercises given by German Schauss in "The Total Shred Guitarist."

Both teachers emphasize that, prior to practicing, one must warm up. German suggests a 10-15 minute warmup PRIOR to practicing. And, like Pebber, German teaches warming up both with picking exercises for the right hand, and finger independence exercises for the left hand. There are many similarities between the basic principals between the warm up exercises given.

As German states: "As always, practice this stuff warmed up. You don't wanna do it with cold hands. You wanna make sure that you're starting slowly so you understand the sound and the rhythmic grouping of the notes you are playing" (Youtube Video: "German Schauss - Alternate Picking Lesson 1").

Here's the kicker: German's video picking demonstrations (appear to) use wrist/tremolo picking.

In other words, both teachers, using different techniques, emphasize warming up as a preliminary to advanced athletic guitar work.

Given that there are numerous ways that people obtain RSI, it is both ignorant, and foolish, to suggest that, (within reason), any one method of moving one's fingers and wrists cannot result in injury and others only result in injury. Such statements seem to miss a more important point: as in any competitive sport, or strenuous vocal exercise, going in "cold" is a bad idea.

...and if it starts to hurt in a bad way, stop doing it!