Monday, June 14, 2010

Hyperextension

Woke up early this morning & it was guitar first & foremost. Played for about 30min or so when I felt pain below the left hand thumb area, leading to the wrist. Stopped & had breakfast. Do you remember guitarist Ron Jarzombek, Marty Friedman's current live show member?

If you know the band Watch Tower then you know what Ron is capable of but he didn't play guitar for 3 good years in his life due to the above reason. Note his left hand pinky & ring fingers; there is a portion there which straightened permanently & not bend any more. The doctors diagnosed this as 'hyperextension'; tendon over-stretching & the inability to revert to any flexible position. There were 3 surgeries done to rectify this occurrence, Ron is now back to his nimble-fingered days & happily playing guitar (yes, you are right- there are actually 29 frets in his guitar above...).

I would often carry on playing despite some finger fatigue because this is part & parcel of finger strengthening but the above account serves to remind me that it could be detrimental when painful so it's either stop in the mean time or stop permanently. Which one did I choose?

3 comments:

Robin said...

sounds painfulll.....

Robin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
subversion.sg said...

good thing it's rectifiable...