My left hand is sore from playing and it has been for 2 days now. Should I continue playing or should i wait fore a few days? If I continue playing should I slow things down?

I would give it a rest. It's not worth risking an injury. I can't assess your particular problem, but I developed a painful ganglion cyst on the top of my left wrist that would only worsen when I played guitar. I used to always ignore any pains and keep playing. This thing got so bad, I had to quit playing almost completely for a long time until it finally went away.
Maybe you can just practice some right hand exercises for awhile.
Of course, I have no idea, what kind of pain you are having or anything about it...just saying you should be careful.

If the pain is in your wrists, and it feels like it's tightening up, just take a break for a day or 2.

If it's in your hand, then it's nothing to worry about, as your hand will have to develop the strength and endurance needed. Just take a break when you feel it starting to hurt, wait 10-20 minutes, come back, and try it again. After a month or so, the major hand pain will stop, as your tendons and fingers will have developed the strength needed.

I'm glad this thread was made because I have the same problem. Thanks for the responses.

Actually, what I've been meaning to ask is if you can get serious problems from shredding or quick constant hand movement on the guitar. I making a ton of noise on the guitar on the weekend by playing randomness very quickly and I got warned that I can get "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome". Is this true? My left hand is kind of hurting but is it in danger?

warm up.... do some hand stretches/exercises.... you'll be fine as long as your technique isn't faulty.

Yeah, warmups are essential. Just like not stretching before a workout can lead to serious injury, playing without warming up or stretching can lead to serious problems.

Stop playing for a while, and just stretch for a few days, regularly. Let it take as long as it needs. DO NOT keep playing, only play again when it's fully not sore. Things like this can lead to shit loads of problems that you really can easily avoid, so just be careful. Remember, NEVER EVER crack your knuckles, but DO stretch them, and stretch the wrist, and from now on, I recommend stretching and warming up both hands before and after you play. Best to be safe, not sorry.

What? That's not dangerous is it? I've never read anything scientific about knuckle-cracking being dangerous.

Dittos on the stretching recommendations. Sometimes I like to play bass or acoustic to warm up for practice. Its easy to warm up for electric guitar on an instrument that's a bit harder to play.

Yeah cracking your knuckles fucks your fingers up reallllly bad. They become un-straight, and deformed, it makes your finger muscles weak, and can cause irritability and soreness while playing, and I should know, I'm a victim, and I haven't cracked my knuckles in a few months, cause I had a habit of it and was wondering why my fingers hurt so bad when I played. And I stopped, and then my fingers gradually became less sore and less sore every time I played. Then a month later, I was watching a bunch of guitar videos and came across one of John Petrucci, my fucking hero, and he said that cracking your knuckles is REALLY bad. And then I was like "holy shit, it was the knuckle cracking". Even if you don't play guitar you shouldn't crack your knuckles. What happens is the pop you hear, is actually air escaping, and when that happens, somethin' happens with the fluid in your joints, I dunno, there's some scientific explanation about it somewhere. I learned it in grade 8 Science .

A major cause of the wrist pain could be that you are bending your wrist... try to keep it as straight as possible, that should really help you with the problem.

thanks for all this everybody

Make sure your action isn't to high, sometimes a high action can cause wrist strain.

Are you fucking serious? Fuck. I do that all the time!
For the record, the pop sound when you crack your knuckles are air bubbles in the synovial fluid (liquid between the joints) becoming compressed. I don't think its been proven to cause arthritis or have any adverse effects but damn, if Petrucci says so then perhaps I should stop, even though in reality I can't.

But it always heals... right?

artheritis or however you spell it does not heal

There is no link between arthritis and cracking knuckles according to present scientific research.

What kind of hand exercises/stretches do you guys do?


and thanks for the advice on cracking your knuckles, i've developed a bad habit for cracking them for awhile now, didn't know it could hurt my playing.

well my friend recently told me to do those wrist circle stretches/exercises

My wrists only generally ever hurt if I have been away from my instrument for awhile - it's like they have withdrawals. It's good to take breaks if they do hurt when playing, though.

Stretching is good, but cracking your knuckles isn't bad. I talked to a friend of mine who's a chiropracter, and this is what he said. Of course your knuckles will hurt and be sore if you do it continuously, but if you only crack your knuckles occasionally, no harm will occur.


He said this as well. No link at all. Arthritis is the stiffening of joints. Cracking your knuckles loosens them, relieving stiffness.

Yes, I meant long term knuckle cracking, it can hurt.

Sorry but a chiropractor is not a Medical Doctor

All research I've ever seen suggests that it is not harmful, but if I found a study that states it was dangerous, I'd probably stop.

I crack mine all the time with no adverse effects (actually it seems helpful).

I think its a sort of Urban Legend.

Maybe not in the traditional sense, but so what? I never said they were, and it doesn't matter for this topic... ";)"

stretch each finger on both hands individually, forwards and back... for the thumbs, pull back, push forward and push it to the side (in towards the palm... not exactly in the palm, but you get what I mean, in the same direction as your palm)... you don't want to push it to the other side

for your wrists, basically the same thing... push down on your palm to pull it back, do the same with the opposite side of the hand and push your wrist forwards... switch hands and do it again.

if you want to fully exercise your arm, hahah, you can pull on a door frame or something... basically lean forwards and backwards with both arms seperately... kinda pulls your shoulders outta their sockets, but yeah, you don't really need to do this.

What I do is what John Petrucci showed me. I stretch my shoulders by taking my wrist in my hand and pulling it back behind my head, with both shoulders. Then I put my arm in front of me, then with my other arm, I pull my elbow towards my chest with both arms, then, since I slouch, I stand straight, put my hands on my hips and rotate the top part of my body in a circle, then I thrust forward and hold that pose until I feel it's right, then I sit, and I take hand, and with it, I put it over my other hand and I grab it, and I pull it towards my elbow, something to stretch out the muscles, this with both hands, then, with my hand, I pull one hand's fingers across the others, and bend them backwards, stretches the fingers out, allows for the quick stuff . But yeah, John Petrucci has a DVD/VHS video out called "Rock Discipline" where he shows stretches, and tons of others stuff. The man is a god, he went to University and whatnot, so he's a professional, just so you know he's not blowin' smoke out his ass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrAaMLpP20k

That's part 1. Cheers, bro.

I have actually not found stretching that useful to me. While I am messing around before a jam session or something I will usually overextend my fingers to play far frets... that always has seemed to work for me well.

Ganglion cysts can be removed by slamming the cyst with extreme force. They are often called "book cysts" by doctors because an easy and cheap remedy is to simply bash the cyst with a heavy book.

Yeah, and don't forget that traditionally, bibles were often the large book used to do the smashing and the lumps were often called "bible bumps" or "bible cysts" and the smashing called "bible therapy."

I was told by a very good doctor who specializes in this sort of thing, that the book smashing really isn't such a good idea. I had one of those same cysts when I was a little kid too - and everyone was always telling me to smash it with a book. That one wasn't painful at all and it went away on its own eventually.

The more recent and worse one, I twice had drained with a needle. It came back each time, but a little smaller and after I laid off the guitar playing for a long while (I still don't play nearly as much as I once did) it went away completely.

The doctor said most of the time they will go away after they are drained once. Much of the time they are not painful and won't interfere with your activities and it's best to leave them alone completely.
Along with the book smashing, he didn't recommend surgical removal for them either. They will usually come back after surgery anyway and then you risk suffering other damage caused during the procedure.