Posture

In this section we are less concerned with technique than we are in building a relaxed, efficient approach to your instrument. You'll need to use the skills developed from relaxation exercises to adjust the way your body wraps itself around your guitar. You need to be conscious of both your own body and its physical relationship with a static object. The interaction between the two of you is more important than where you put your hand or whether you sit or stand.

That interaction is however a personal one, between you and your guitar not something that can be formulated and presented here in six easy to follow steps. For that reason you're being presented here with a process, not a solution. I don't know your solution but I've got a good idea of how you can find it for yourself. I'll make recommendations, feel free to reject them, ask yourself before you do though a few simple questions.

Why am I choosing this approach?
Do I understand the benefits and the pitfalls?
Is it the best approach for me?

Learning to relax into a sound posture happens slowly, by degrees. You don't need to arrive at an optimum posture before you start to notice results however, that will happen surprisingly quickly and you'll continue to improve the more you're able to put a few basic concepts into practice.

The rest of this section can be divided into analyses of the upper and lower body positions. The essence of any sound posture depends on a stable base and a relaxed, adaptable upper body. Both the sitting and standing postures will provide that base so the descriptions of the shoulder and arm positions will be equally relevant in both instances.

Standing Posture

The natural position for most modern electric guitars is hanging from a strap. It allows you to avoid the big problem with the guitarists posture - sitting. Classical guitar players long ago developed a way to sit and play that works well for the classical guitar but is simply too cumbersome for larger steel string and electric guitars. That's OK we'll take advantage of the strap and learn to stand properly and then we can start to look at the problems we encounter when we sit down.

Here we're going to adapt the basic standing position that you first saw in the relaxation program into one that you can use when you're playing. There are two things that need to be changed from the basic tai chi stance. Firstly there's the position of your arms which is covered in detail in module 2, for now just hold them however you feel comfortable. The other change comes about because you're centre of gravity moves forward with the weight of the guitar.

Firstly we need to examine a normal standing posture. The horse stance, from the relaxation program, presents a basic stance for tai chi practice and it's essential principles can be applied to us. So to recap:

Your feet are parallel and shoulder width apart.
Your weight is evenly distributed across your feet and you're knees are just off-lock so that your legs take your weight.
Your pelvis is relaxed and your chest is open.

So get into the horse stance, taking particular note of the weight distribution on your feet, the load in your legs when you unlock your knees and keeping your spine supported on a relaxed, floating pelvis. Then put your guitar on and do it again, noticing any changes resulting from the extra weight of the guitar. It may take some time to be comfortable tuning in like this, you don't need to be an expert, any extra awareness you bring to this position will help.

Is your weight still even on your feet. If it's drifted toward the front then your centre of gravity has shifted forward and you'll probably find that you've arched your back a little.
Are your knees still off-lock, this will help get your pelvis back, reducing the arch in your back. You'll notice again a change in the weight distribution on your feet depending on what your knees are doing. The extra weight of the guitar should be taken by your legs.
Place your hands into the muscles in the small of your back. You shouldn't feel any contraction in the back muscles. If you do then you're pushing your pelvis forward, double check your feet and knees, get someone to take a photo if you need to

This level of attention to your bodies responses is purely for the sake of the exercise. If you can get so comfortable with it that you can do it at gigs then that's great but it's not necessary. Just practice and eventually, like everything else, you'll find it becomes part of your routine without you even noticing it.

The following slideshow will take you through a number of common standing positions, some problematic, some not. As you scroll through if you want further information simply click on the image.

Standing positionA comfortable standing position. With the guitar high enough I can place my left hand at the neck with a neutral wristPrevious Image 1/6 Next

There are two advantage to bringing your weight back onto your legs. Firstly the small muscles in your low back won't fatigue and secondly the lumbar curve will now allow the rest of the spine to unfold in the shape it prefers.

When your knees lock and your pelvis floats forward you create a curve that starts way down at your ankles and ends up in the middle of your thoracic spine. Try it yourself and you'll generate a curve that loads the muscles in your calves, your hamstrings, the lateral hip rotators and the muscles in your lower back. Add an extra weight with your guitar at the front and you increase that load.
Notice too the angle that your back is making as it heads up to the middle of your thoracic, the curve in your lower body means that your lower thoracic is angling back way too far. In order then to straighten up you need to roll your upper thoracic forward into what is effectively a hunched posture in the upper body. This has unwelcome consequences for the shoulder as you'll find in module 2.
In extension of the hunching in the upper thoracic the lower cervical vertebrae protrude forward. In a final effort to keep your eyes on the road your upper cervicals then have to arch back creating a lot of tension at junction of the first cervical and the bottom of your skull.

An extension of the basic tai chi stance, the chong position is one that we can adapt to our playing. Remember that this exercise adds upper body relaxation to the lower body stability that we learn in the tai chi stance.

The height of the guitar is crucial to the eventual position of your hands and you don't need to have it fixed in stone just yet, as you progress through this section you may find your self revisiting your basic stance more than once, that's a good thing. For now put your guitar on however you like.

Stand as close to possible to your chong stance with your lower body stable, you chest open, shoulder relaxed and as little tension in your arms as you need to hold them in position.
The lower your guitar is the lower it's dragging your centre of gravity and the harder it will be to avoid pushing your pelvis forward. So you need to determine how far forward you're prepared to lean, and lift your centre of gravity (your guitar) so that you can achieve that position comfortably
From the chong stance you simply need to shift both hands to the left, rotating the shoulders, keeping the upper arms in position and changing the angle of the forearms to take the hands to the guitar.
Don't touch the guitar yet, move back in and out of the chong position so that you keep the same openness in the chest as you move and you feel as comfortable with your hands at the guitar as you do away from it. The more you've practiced the relaxation exercises the easier this will be.
When you've got this down make any fine adjustments you need to get your hands at your guitar and play something simple, again focusing on maintaining the space in your upper body.

Practice this exercise every day for a few weeks and you'll start to make some significant changes to the way you approach your guitar. You may need to revisit the chong exercise, ensuring that your weight is on your legs and your upper body relaxed.

The height of the guitar is obviously crucial here and it won't hurt to experiment with a few different positions. It doesn't need to be as high as mine but note that it will have a significant affect on the position of your wrist and hand and is absolutely worth spending the time to get it right. That may not happen till the end of the program once we've drawn everything together.

Sitting Posture

Sitting is obviously a more common position for practicing, it’s just easier. Sitting and playing a guitar though is not something we’ve evolved to do so well and it does present us with a few problems.

The problem with sitting

Sitting on a flat chair tends to roll your lumbar spine back encouraging an exaggerated curve in the upper back and compensatory hyperextension high in the neck.
To get the guitar at a comfortable height you need to lift the leg that you're resting it on. This tends to create tension in the hip flexors, straining the lower back.
Lifting the leg tends to roll the pelvis back, we need to be aware of this and continue to lean forward into the guitar, sitting on the front of the ilium (pelvis).
There’s a greater tendency to lean over your guitar (due to the position of the pelvis) which makes it impossible for the shoulder to position the arm correctly.

Excess thoracic curve - Lateral ViewThis degree of thoracic forward bending will lock the scapula and strain the AC joint.Previous Image 1/5 Next

And how to tackle it

Start with the relaxation program and make sure you’re comfortable with the sitting exercises in the last module.
If you need to raise your guitar you can get it to the correct height with a footstool under your right foot (unless of course you're playing a classical guitar).
Tuck your guitar into your lower abdomen, at a slight angle so that the guitar is facing either straight aheaad or slightly down. This will make it easier for both hands but particularly your left wrist.
Push your lower abdomen forward so that your sitting on the front of your pelvis. This will open your lumbar spine and support it’s natural curve.
Be aware of the muscles on the inside of your legs, they should be as relaxed as possible
The hip flexor on the right will be short in this position, if it is having to hold your leg up it will cause a significant strain on your lower back. Make sure that your leg is heavy on the footstool as if it were on the floor.
The femur tends to rotate as it flexes past 90˚, this can cause tension in the muscles stabilising the hip joint.

So this position can potentially generate myofascial tension at the front, side and back of the pelvis. The following exercise will help you relax the structures that tend to be stressed in this position and help you load up your skeleton rather than the myofascia. It relies on the focused awareness technique that you learned as part of the relaxation program.

Dynamic relaxation exercise

Begin by focusing on the outside of your left foot and be aware of releasing any tension up the side of your leg all the way to your hip. Do the same with your right leg.
Bring your focus next to the gluteal muscles, your sitting on them, and release any excess tension there.
Go back to your feet, this time on the top, and relax from there to the lateral part of your shin, to your knee and up to the front of your leg where it meets the lower abdomen (the inguinal ligament). Do the same on the right leg.
Go back to your left foot and release any tension in the calf, behind the knee and the back of the leg up to your gluteals. Repeat on the right side.
Be aware of releasing any tension around your sacrum and loosen the connective tissue belt that runs around the top of your pelvis and descends into your groin.
The hip flexors run from the front of your legs, through your lower abdomen onto your anterior spine and take the most strain in this position. As you consciously release any tension around the groin be aware of allowing your pelvis and lower back to fall into a new position.
This will allow you to relax the larger lumbar stabilisers in the small of your back as well as the small muscles deeper to the spine.

This sort of exercise relies heavily on your ability to relax specific muscle groups. If you’re having difficulty with it then revisit the relaxation program, particularly the focused awareness exercises.

This video will take you through a number of options for seated positions. Classical guitarists many years ago developed an efficient way of sitting that allows the upper body to relax. Unfortunately for us the larger size of most steel string instruments makes that position just too cumbersome. The guitar's body doesn't fit in the lap as easily and the left hand is simply too far away.

So we did the things that we humans do best, we adapted. The most common position now has the guitar on the right leg, avoiding the excessive leg abduction that this size instrument would require, and bringing the left hand closer to the middle. Unfortunately it also takes the right hand away from the midline creating all sorts of contorsions in the right shoulder, more on that in the next module.

We examine three common ways of holding the guitar in a seated position: on a strap and on your right leg with and without a footstool. The aim of all of these positions is to achieve a stable spinal curve and a relaxed open upper body. You'll see how the angle of your pelvis on the chair dictates the shape of the spine above it and a number of ways to sit with a healthy spinal curve.

Myofascial imbalances in the lower body will add to the strain caused by this seated position. The following exercises will are helpful, particularly if you uffer from low back pain or are having difficulty maintaining this recommended seated position.

Sitting relaxation exercise	These are an advanced part of the relaxation program and a precursor to the above dynamic relaxation exercise.
hamstring stretches	Short hamstrings are commonly related to low back pain and postural adaptations such as a sway back. When you’re sitting however knee flexion creates considerable slack in the hamstrings and their shortness is less of a direct issue. Their considerable affect on the lower body however does mean that you when you sit down they have already caused strain in your lower back (which is probably why you’re sitting), and possible thickness of the sacral connective tissue.
hip rotators	Flexion of the right hip above 90˚ will induce lateral rotation of the femur. If the medial rotators are short they will pull on the sacrum – not good.
Hip Flexors	The hip flexors need to maintain your sitting position. They are usually not strong enough to maintain a healthy sitting position and often shorter on on e side than the other. This sitting position will shorten the right hip flexors which should be gently mobilised before playing and adequately stretched afterwards.

Shoulder positioning

Throughout the relaxation program you learned to switch off areas of tension and allow your body to readjust it’s shape accordingly. That’s what you’ll do again here. Your guitar will provide a distraction but that should be all, the same principles will apply:

focus on a certain area
breathe out any tension
allow your body to reshape itself

Open the chest

Practice the following short exercise in both seated and standing positions, become so familiar with it that it happens automatically every time you pick your guitar.

Take a breathe in and then as you breath out allow your shoulders to simply fall.
Continue breathing and focus on the large muscle at the top of your shoulder (trapezius). The upper traps make a line between the back of the neck and the top of your shoulder so the common tendency for the head to protrude forward will also pull the shoulders forward. As the tension in these superior fibres is reduced you’ll notice you’re chest opening and your shoulders start to straighten as well as fall.
Now focus on the muscles at the side of your neck, you probably won’t notice any shape change with this, the scalenes are generally hard as a rock, but it will take a lot of the stress away from structures all around the neck and connect the upper traps with the front of the chest.
Focus now on the area just below your clavicle, a reduction in the tension here will bring your shoulders back, opening your chest.

This is plenty to start with and even if you don’t notice any change in your posture you will have reduced much of strain on your shoulders. If these exercises seem difficult it may be worth revisiting the relaxation program but don’t be discouraged, do them anyway. Even if you don’t notice any change straight away there will be a small shift and the more you do it the more difference you’ll make.

Synopsis

Supporting exercises

the relaxation program	The relaxation program underpins the approach we're taking here. You need to be able to isolate a muscle group and release any tension you're holding there.
lateral neck stretch	The stretch for the lateral neck flexors will lengthen both the upper trapezius and the scalenes, which attach onto your shoulder and clavicle respectively and are associated with elevated shoulders.
pec stretch	The anterior shoulder stretch will lengthen the muscles in the front of your chest that tend to close it off. Pectoralis minor in particular tends to shorten and contribute to tipping of the scapula.

Right shoulder position

The primary problem, and one that is, to varying degrees, unavoidable is the displacement of the right scapula as the arm reaches forward over your guitar. The classical position is undoubtedly the best way of avoiding this scapula displacement, unfortunately as the guitar has evolved it’s become less practical to always play it this way and we’ve been forced to adopt a less ergonomic position. The photo gallery shows some of the problems that we now face in positioning our right shoulder.

Scapula tipping at the AC jointLeaning the right shoulder forward places considerable strain on the AC joint and the muscles that stabilise the scapulaPrevious Image 1/9 Next

So all of us will need to find a way to deal with this problem. One element in the solution is the maintenance of a healthy muscle tone. The very complex balance that the shoulder strikes between mobility and structural integrity requires an equilibrium across the competing force vectors. As soon as one element in this mix becomes weak, others strain to take up the slack and further problems ensue. The long pole exercise is the best one that I’ve come across but many people will prefer gym work (under supervision) or specific exercises from physical therapists.

The second element is, of course, keeping the shoulder relaxed. If you can reach with your left hand to the bottom of your right scapula you’ll probably feel the inferior angle protruding out the back. This is an indication the scapula is either winging (dragging around to the side) or tipping (sliding up over the top). There is more than likely a combination of the two. Use the upper body relaxation exercise that's included in the standing posture section to straighten the spine, open the chest and drop the shoulder. Reach around again to the inferior angle to see if the scapula has shifted.

You don’t need to totally eliminate this tipping of the scapula but you do want to reduce it. Excessive tipping will strain the acromioclavicular (AC) joint and any displacement of the scapula will strain your serratus anterior muscle as it tries to pull it back onto the rib cage. Pain that feels like it sits under the lower part of the scapula is probably related to serratus anterior strain.

If you simply pull your shoulder back to get into this position you’ll only create more tension, you need to focus on relaxing your shoulder and allowing it to fall into a more open position. The key here is to ensure that you’re sitting up straight, any thoracic bending, caused by hunching over your guitar, will contribute to scapula tipping

supporting exercises

the long pole	This is probably the most useful exercise in the whole program. It will strengthen your shoulders as well as encourage mobility and flexibility.
medial rotator stretch	The medial rotators of the shoulder are often short, closing off the chest and contributing to rounded shoulders.
shoulder massage sequence	The shoulder massage sequence in conjunction with the stretches will increase blood flow and assist the relaxation response.

Left shoulder position

The change from the classical position has brought the guitar more to the right and while it’s not good for the right shoulder it is better for the left side. The main problem that people face here is the tendency to lift the shoulder. This is totally avoidable and easily managed.

Left shoulder elevatedElevation of the lefts shoulder will accompany elbow winging and this thumb positionPrevious Image 1/8 Next

As you’ll have seen from the biomechanical analysis if the left elbow is tucked into your side, hanging vertically from your shoulder, then your shoulder is doing it’s job. In order to achieve this and to encourage maximum relaxation all the way down the arm it needs to be as relaxed and in as neutral a position as possible. The strategies that we applied to the right shoulder are just as relevant here.

Take a breath in and then as you breathe out allow your shoulders to simply fall.
Continue this relaxed breathing and focus on the large muscle at the top of your shoulder (trapezius). The upper traps make a line between the back of the neck and the top of your shoulder so the common tendency for the head to protrude forward will also pull the shoulders forward. As the tension in these superior fibres is reduced you’ll notice you’re shoulders start to straighten as well as fall.
Now focus on the muscles at the side of your neck, you probably won’t notice any shape change with this, the scalenes are generally hard as a rock, but it will take a lot of the stress away from structures all around the neck and connect the upper traps with the front of the chest.
Focus now on the area just below your clavicle, a reduction in the tension here will bring your shoulders back, opening your chest.

The left scapula is less likely to tip up over the rib cage, instead the entire shoulder complex tends to lift, either through inherent tension in the shoulder elevators, or the position of the hand and elbow. There’s a full description of these patterns in the biomechanics pages.

To stop the shoulder lifting and the elbow winging out we need to find another way to reach high up on the neck of the guitar. With the shoulder in the position we are prescribing here the humerus can rotate at the glenohumeral joint with little if any affect on the rest of the shoulder complex. Shoulder rotation is not a straightforward movement, keeping it stable and mobile through such a wide range of rotation does take some tricky engineering. The shoulder is well adapted to do this however and when there are no loads other than gravity acting on the arm this movement won’t add to the myofascial tension in your arm and shoulder.

To keep it there you need to ensure that as you move down the fretboard toward the headstock your shoulder rotates. Take a look at this short video.

Supporting exercises

the relaxation program	This is a pre-requisite for most of the approaches you'll find here
medial rotator stretch	The medial rotators of the shoulder are often short, closing off the chest and contributing to rounded shoulders.
shoulder elevators stretch	The lateral neck streatch will stretch the shoulder elevators, If they muscles are short the shoulder tends to lift throwing out the positions of both the elbow and the hand.
shoulder massage sequence	The shoulder massage sequence in conjunction with the stretches will increase blood flow and assist the relaxation response.
technique exercises	These exercises will help you reach up and down the neck without lifting your shoulder.

Right hand position

By the time we get to analysing the position of the hands all of the hard work has been done. The shoulder and arm has to position the hands in space and where they sit is in turn determined by the spine so if we've got all that right we're left with little more than some fine tuning.

The so-called correct techniques are biomechanically sound and widely known. Any biomechanical analysis of the hands at this point would simply bring us back to these already well documented approaches. While I present some of them in the following pages the over-riding focus is on making you more comfortable with your technique, whether or not you decide that you need to change aspects of it.

Right hand approaches can vary wildly. Fingerpickers and flatpickers are, in many respects, playing different instruments but there are also variations according to style, the shape of the guitar and personal preference.

Common to all players however is the need to have your basic posture right, your shoulders and arm relaxed and positioned to minimise the stress on your hands and to maximise their mechanical advantage

Right hand position - fingerpicking

Fingerpickers, as opposed to classical players, have evolved a myriad of different styles and techniques based, usually, on what is most comfortable for the individual player.

If you're hand is relaxed and you can play with a relatively neutral wrist (some ulnar deviation is inevitable for most of us) and a strong neutral thumb then your wrist position is OK. Most of us will play with some flexion of the wrist which is not generally a problem.

Fingerpicking - Lateral ViewWith the thumb parallel to the strings the wrist can be relatively neutral.Previous Image 1/6 Next

If you are going to be a competent fingerpicker you'll need a relaxed technique, at the same time the best way to achieve this is to get good at what you're doing. The technique exercises and plenty of practice will be your best friends here.

Fingerpicking requires independent movement of the thumb and usually two or three fingers. This independence of movement is not required in most other activities so we are neither constructed well anatomically or well practiced at achieving it. For this reason the focused awareness approach that we take to most other disciplines has to be modified here.

Rather than focusing on specific areas of the body the best way to free up the right hand is to focus on something else. The right hand needs to fly, with little or no conscious effort. Focusing on the sound you're making, keeping your breathe easy and slow, your shoulders soft allows the hand to switch to auto-pilot, relying on the hours of practice you've already put it in.

While you're putting in these hours and training your muscle memory so that it can take over for you like this keep these points in mind:

Repetition will build muscle memory but it is also the primary cause of overuse. Ensure that you're practicing with your shoulders and hands soft. You don't necessarily need to play slowly, if you can play short passages up to speed then go ahead but if you try to play too fast your hand will tense up.
When learning a new piece repeat short passages to build new movements into your muscle memory
Get enough rest breaks, intersperse the repetitive movements with other activities, either a warm up exercise, any of the stretches or mobilisations for the forearm or the baoding exercise.

Right hand position - flatpicking

We already know that the most efficient position for the wrist is a neutral one. Variations from this neutral position will depend on the angle that you attack the string, whether or not you anchor your wrist, and the size and position of the guitar.

The analysis on the biomechanics pages will help you determine how much you're prepared to vary from this neutral position. The following strategies will be helpful in any case.

Flatpickpicking - Anterior ViewThis neutral wrist position allows easy access to the stringsPrevious Image 1/5 Next

Wrist motion

We’ve all taken one end of a piece of rope and flicked it to create a wave. If your wrist is stiff you might get a staccato type ripple, but if it's both loose and firm and you initiate a strong movement from your shoulder, or better still your legs, you’ll have a stronger, more consistent movement along the rope.

The same goes for picking, you need to pick a string with this sort of intent and fluidity. Again we have an application for our focused awareness skills.

Without attacking the string, take your plectrum and make a flicking motion, as you would if you were flicking a rope.
The impetus for this motion will start at the elbow even though the elbow doesn’t actually move. Instead imagine a wave, slowly gaining momentum and breaking at the wrist as it would as it reaches the shore.
With this same intent play a few notes on your guitar.
The energy released at the wrist needs to continue up the string to the left hand which then “catches” and absorbs it. The idea is that nowhere along this continuum is the wave blocked.

This technique is more thoroughly thrashed out in the Practice pages.

To anchor or not to anchor?

There are definite disadvantages, biomechanically, in anchoring. It tends to lock the hand in one position and wrist anchoring can induce an unhealthy hyperextension.

That said some people will find it helps them, their playing style may be more suited to it and it may help the hand to relax, simply because it's easier to play that way. If you do rely on this technique and have ever tried to play without it you’ll have found your hand tense up and your playing slow down.

An anchored wrist is more of a problem than the common practice of resting your little finger on the scratch plate because it reduces the mobility of your hand more and importantly it creates hyperflexion in the wrist. When you're deciding whether it's worth this significant change to your technique look first at how much of a problem it is.

The main question is how much hyperextension does it create. If you’re playing an electric guitar on a long strap it’ll be easier to maintain the straight wrist, keep an anchor point either at the bridge of the scratch plate, and play with a soft relaxed forearm and hand. If you then lift the hand away from the guitar be prepared for what is likely to happen.

This will take lot of practice to get right, the unfamiliar position, the difficulty finding the strings and the energy required to lift your hand away from the guitar will build a lot of extra tension in your arm. It may be worth it but you’ll need to have your shoulders soft and be very confident that you can keep the entire arm and hand relaxed as you practice.

If on the other hand you’re playing an acoustic guitar, or a 335 on a shorter strap, it’s an entirely different ball game. Now having the wrist on the bridge will cause it to lift slightly into an extended position, just enough to lock up your wrist and finger extensors, before you even hit a note. The advantage now of getting your wrist away from the bridge will definitely be worth the effort, and it won’t be as difficult as it would be playing a Les Paul down around your knees.

Getting the wrist off the bridge

Make sure that you’ve first looked at the previous section on shoulder positioning. Getting your wrist away from the bridge is not a complicated matter but it does take some practice and will feel awkward at first. If your shoulders are soft and that you are confident that you can keep your hand and arm relaxed as you practice you’ve done the hard yards.

Position your guitar high enough that you can keep your wrist in a neutral position (if it’s too low you’ll be force into radial deviation)
Ensure that you’re holding your plectrum correctly and your hands are soft. I’d suggest that you start with the flatpicking technique exercises. Start with the simpler ones, play very slowly and stop once you’re aware of any tension in your shoulder or arm.

These exercises rely heavily on your focused awareness skills, having these honed will be a real advantage in making this significant adjustment to your technique.

Right elbow

The right elbow will flex as much as it needs to get the hand in the right position, it is well adapted to do this and as long as any scapula tipping hasn’t rotated the humerus it shouldn’t be under any strain at all. Right elbow dysfunction is related to the muscles that control the hand and wrist that originate either at or near the elbow.