The Three Types of Exercise Musicians Need in Their Lives
by Caroline Juster. Published, December 20th, 2022.
As musicians, we devote our lives to becoming masters of our craft. We practice, listen, study, rehearse, perform and immerse ourselves in all things music. We hone our technique and refine our ears.
What many of us miss is the importance of training our bodies away from our instruments to support our playing.
Although we primarily work with our heads and hearts, we live inside physical bodies. You’re a human first before you’re a musician, and humans need to develop certain physical qualities to be healthy, feel good and perform at the highest level.
Neglecting your body directly impacts your ability to focus, be creative and recover. It also affects your mental health. Without physical training you won’t bring your best self to the table - in music or elsewhere in your life.
If you don’t want your body to hold you back from living your best life, you need regular exercise. You don’t need to spend hours in the gym but you do need to train three key areas each week.
Why this matters to me
I know first hand how being out of shape can negatively affect musical performance.
In the first half of my trombone career, I was out of shape and had obesity. I struggled with energy and regularly fell asleep in rehearsals (maybe this is just a low brass problem.)
I felt exhausted carrying my trombones and music around my college campus every day. My low back, knees and elbows hurt constantly. Long rehearsals were especially hard on my back.
To make matters worse, I was deeply insecure and struggled with performance anxiety. I felt paralyzed by nerves and ashamed of how I looked each time I got up on stage.
The summer after my freshman year at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, I experienced a major health scare that changed the course of my life. My doctor informed me that I was prediabetic and needed to make serious changes if I wanted to avoid a lifetime of chronic illness.
I began working out and changing the way I ate. As I became stronger, leaner and fitter, my trombone playing improved.
First, I noticed that I had way more energy every day. Next, my playing-related joint pain disappeared. My low back no longer crushed me after long rehearsals. I also started feeling much more connected to my body. These changes made it easier to practice, study and perform.
In time, I noticed a dramatic increase in confidence. This wasn’t because my body was smaller, but rather the cumulative result of showing up for myself day after day. I was amazed at the incredible things my body could do and this directly translated into greater confidence on stage.
This experience sparked a passion for health and fitness that eventually led me to a career as a fitness coach.
Although I’m no longer working as a professional musician, my life’s mission is to help other musicians, artists and creative people build their best lives through physical training.
I want you to feel great while playing your instrument. I want you to have the energy, strength and stamina to do the things you love to do away from music. And I want you to be healthy and resilient so you can have a long and rewarding career.
If you also want these things for yourself, you need to develop three key physical qualities through your exercise routine.
Having just one of these things is better than having none of them, but you need the trifecta to maximize the benefits of working out and become the fittest version of yourself.
These three qualities are movement capacity, strength and metabolic conditioning. Let’s dive into what they are, why you need them and how to develop them. Along the way I’ll bust some of the most common myths about musicians and exercise.
Movement Capacity
Movement capacity refers to how many different types of motion you can express at a given point in time.
Human beings possess a vast and rich potential for movement. Just look at the incredible diversity of movement displayed across various sports, dance, yoga and tai-chi.
Musicians don’t need to aspire to the extreme ends of movement capacity the way a gymnast or dancer might. Nevertheless, you do need your body to move well in a handful of key ways if you want to feel good on a daily basis.
To some extent, movement capacity is use it or lose it. Most little kids can move in impressive ways that are no longer accessible to adults due to inactivity over decades.
If all you ever do is sit and play your instrument, your movement capacity will continue to shrink until other types of movement are no longer available to you.
Lack of movement capacity shows up as poor mobility, feeling tight or stiff and not being able to get into good positions while playing your instrument or at the gym.
Poor movement capacity can also contribute to injuries.
Injuries happen when your body can’t handle the forces placed upon it. Developing movement capacity makes you more resilient when your body is thrown into unexpected or challenging situations.
For example, let’s say you take a bad step and slip sideways on an icy sidewalk. If you’ve spent time training in the frontal plane - doing side to side exercises - you’ve trained your body to absorb sideways force. It’s been there before and knows what to do.
On the flip side, if you only ever move forwards and backwards in your workouts, this is an unfamiliar position for your body. You’re a lot more likely to hurt yourself when you fall.
Lack of movement capacity can even play a role in the development of those pesky overuse injuries that plague musicians.
Although you might only use a narrow range of motion in a joint to play your instrument, that joint likely needs to regularly move through a large range of motion in order to remain healthy and happy.
Think about how little your shoulders and hips - the two most mobile joints in your body - move while playing compared to their full potential range of motion. Joints need diversity of movement. Unhappy joints subjected to hours of repetitive movements through practice and performance is a recipe for pain and dysfunction.
Don’t fret if you haven’t been moving very much or suspect your movement capacity is lacking. There are many ways to develop or regain this important quality. Here are some of my favorite strategies:
1. Perform a warmup targeting your feet/ankles, hips, upper back, shoulders and hands/wrists before every workout. Prioritize drills where you're actively moving your
body as opposed to static stretches where you hold one position. You may also find it beneficial to do this before your first practice session of the day or before a long rehearsal or concert.
2. Train in multiple planes of motion. Everybody starts off with exercises that move forwards and backwards (think running, cycling, squats, pushups and rows.) In time, however, it’s important to expand into different planes of motion because real life happens in all directions.
Start this process with exercises that move from side to side. Experienced trainees can eventually add in rotational movements, but it’s best to do this under the guidance of a coach to ensure you’re using proper form.
3. Use complete ranges of motion when you lift weights. Don’t sell yourself short and go too shallow on tough exercises like squats, lunges and pushups. Choose exercise variations that allow you to take your joints through a full range of motion. If you’re not sure what this means or how to do it, a coach can help.
4. Force your body to move in novel ways through different types of exercise. Try new stuff and have fun playing and exploring what your body can do. Examples include yoga, tai-chi or qigong, animal flows, martial arts, dance, circus arts or rock climbing. These types of training are a great complement to cardio and lifting weights.
Some people are naturally blessed with great movement capacity. You’ll know you’re one of these people if you consider yourself to be very flexible and gravitate towards activities like yoga. If this is you, you probably need more of the other two qualities (especially strength) in your life. Continue your practice if it’s working for you, but consider making space for other types of training as well.
Strength
Strength is the ability to produce or resist force. It’s primarily developed by increasing the efficiency of your nervous system so it can rapidly coordinate the right combination of muscles to get the job done.
When you’re strong, everything in life becomes easier. You’ll have an easier time lifting, carrying and holding heavy items including large instruments, bags of music, loads of laundry, heavy suitcases, children and pets.
Strength training provides benefits you can’t get from other types of exercise. It increases bone density, reducing the risk of catastrophic falls or bone-related illness later in life. Strong muscles
lead to stronger and more resilient joints. Your playing posture and endurance improve when your core and back muscles are stronger.
Anecdotally, I’ve observed that strength training increases confidence more than other types of exercise. When you see yourself doing impressive things in the weight room, you start to carry yourself differently. This has the potential to totally transform your stage presence.
You build strength through resistance training. This could mean going to a gym and lifting weights, or it could mean training at home (or in a park) with bands, sandbags or your own bodyweight.
The most important factor for building strength is exposing your body to challenging loads that get progressively harder over time.
There are a lot of misconceptions about strength training for musicians. Many people believe that lifting weights will make them big, bulky and uncoordinated - destroying the fine motor control needed to play their instrument. Others worry that they’re going to hurt themselves if they venture into the weight room.
The first issue here is the idea that chasing strength automatically leads to bigger muscles.
Getting stronger and building muscle are related, but they aren’t the same. As I mentioned above, the main driver of strength is nervous system efficiency. This means that many trainees can get really strong without ever gaining a single pound of muscle.
Bigger muscles have the potential for more strength, but they aren’t necessary if all you want to do is feel stronger in your daily life. And if you do want to build muscle to fill out your tux or show off your arms in a sleeveless gown, you can do so without negatively affecting your ability to play your instrument.
This brings me to the second misconception that strong, muscular people are somehow less coordinated and more out of touch with their bodies.
This couldn’t be farther from the truth. What I’ve found personally and observed in all my musician clients over the years is that lifting weights increases body awareness and control. You develop a much clearer sense of where your body parts in space are and can manipulate them with greater ease.
There’s another reason lifting weights won’t affect your technique. The specificity principle of training dictates that the way your body responds to any type of physical training is specific to the type of training. This means you have to get really, really close to a specific movement in order to impact that movement.
As long as you’re not performing a weighted imitation of playing your instrument, the type of training you’re doing at the gym is way too general to impact your playing-related motor skills.
Last, let me address the issue of injuries. It’s true that you might hurt yourself in the gym if you jump right into a technically complex exercise or use weights that are way too heavy. But you could also get hurt if you’re weak and find yourself in a compromising position your body can’t handle (remember the slipping on the ice example above?)
There’s no way to 100% prevent all injuries because there are so many factors involved. However, getting strong is a really great way to decrease the likelihood of getting hurt and increase the rate at which you’ll recover if you do.
Stronger people are much more physically resilient and capable than people who don’t lift weights.
Here are some best practices for strength training for musicians:
● Lift weights 2-4 times per week for 20-60 minutes at a time.
● Use full body workouts.
● Perform one exercise from each category per workout:
○ Lower body push: squats, lunges, split squats, step ups, hip thrusts
○ Lower body pull: deadlift, Romanian deadlift, swings, good mornings, leg curls ○ Upper body push: pushups, chest press, overhead press, landmine press ○ Upper body pull: rows, pull ups, chins ups, pulldowns
○ Core: dead bugs, planks and side planks, pallof press, chops and lifts ● Pick simple exercises that are easy to perform with good form. Don’t be in a rush to use a barbell or do the most complicated exercises.
● Perform 2-4 sets of 6-12 reps most of the time. Experienced trainees looking for more strength can go heavier in the 3-5 rep range. Use occasional sets of 12-20 reps to increase muscular endurance.
● Rest 1-2 minutes between sets. Taking too little rest impacts your ability to lift heavy weights.
● Always look for ways to progress. Some examples:
○ Lift heavier weights
○ Do more sets and/or reps
○ Add more time (for exercises like planks)
○ Use better form
○ Progress to more advanced exercises
○ Train in different planes of motion (eg. start with reverse lunges, progress to side lunges)
● When in doubt about form or programming, hire a coach. They can make all these decisions for you and make sure you’re staying safe while you’re getting strong.
Metabolic conditioning
Metabolic conditioning refers to your body’s ability to efficiently produce and use energy. Think of it as a fancy word for different types of cardio.
Lots of people think metabolic conditioning is all about burning calories or trying to lose weight, but the true benefits of this type of training go much deeper.
Cardio training gives you more energy and helps you recover faster from intense efforts in the gym or on stage.
It also has more impact on your overall health and wellbeing than any other type of training. A healthy cardiovascular system is strongly correlated with a reduced risk of developing chronic illnesses or dying young.
If you want to have a long musical career and life, you absolutely need to be doing metabolic conditioning every week.
Like strength training and movement capacity, metabolic conditioning works best when you take a well-rounded approach.
There are literally dozens of different metabolic conditioning training methods that fill entire books and courses. To keep it simple here, I suggest doing two things each week:
1. Cardiac output training. These are continuous cardio sessions done at a low or moderate intensity. Aim for 30-90 minutes done 1-3 times per week. Keep your heart rate between 110 and 150 beats per minute and try to breathe through your nose if possible. Resist the temptation to go too hard or too fast!
2. High intensity training. Once or twice a week, do some type of training that gets your heart rate up high. My favorite method is to do short, intense intervals on a piece of cardio equipment like an assault bike or rowing machine. Begin with just 8-10 seconds of all-out effort followed by 52-50 seconds of rest to let your heart rate drop. Start with one set of 3-5 intervals. Eventually, you can work your way up to performing multiple sets with longer intervals.
If you haven’t been exercising at all, it’s best to wait on the higher intensity intervals. You won’t get as much out of them and they can seriously tax your recovery. Prioritize the cardiac output sessions for a few months before adding higher intensities to the mix.
Many musicians already get their cardio in the form of endurance training. Runners, cyclists, swimmers and triathletes abound in the music world. If this is you - or if you aspire to participate in endurance sports - I suggest hiring an experienced coach to help you create a training plan that makes sense for your competition goals.
Not an endurance athlete but hate doing cardio on machines? You can also get some of your cardio in the form of active hobbies. Training in martial arts, learning to skateboard, playing pick up games with your friends or taking up rock climbing are all examples of cardio training disguised as something more fun. Getting outside is also an easy way to make any type of cardio more enjoyable.
Putting it all together
Here is a simple exercise plan for a musician who’s not currently working out. You can also use it to diversify your approach to training without spending hours in the gym:
● Do a full-body warmup first thing in the morning, before you exercise and before any lengthy practice sessions or performances.
● Lift weights twice per week for 30-45 minutes. Use full body workouts and follow the guidelines above.
● Once or twice a week, do a 30 minute continuous cardiac output session at a moderate intensity (heart rate between 110 and 150 bpm or nasal breathing throughout.) Do this after you lift weights or as a separate workout.
● Do something else that forces your body to move in different ways weekly or a few times per month. This could be yoga, sports or another active hobby or outdoor adventure. ● Bonus: Walk as much as possible every day. Try to get your average daily step count up to 7,000 or more.
Once you’ve been training for a few months and have been consistent with the longer cardio sessions, add some higher intensity intervals once or twice a week. Do this at the end of a lifting workout.
More experienced trainees can add more training sessions or skew their training toward more strength or more cardio to achieve specific goals. Just don’t cut anything out entirely. If you want to be a healthy, vibrant, strong and resilient musician and human, you need all three types of training in your life.
BIO
Caroline Juster is a classically trained musician turned fitness coach for fellow musicians, artists and creative people. Her coaching career began in January 2014 when she was still a Northwestern University Bienen School of Music student. Since then, she has trained hundreds of clients in-person and online from all over the world. Caroline specializes in helping musicians and other creatives use strength training, smart cardio and no-nonsense nutrition to build their best lives outside the gym. She is a fitness writer for Livestrong.com and has also written for the Personal Trainer Development Center. Caroline is a Certified Functional Strength Coach, plus a Certified Personal Trainer and Corrective Exercise Specialist through the National Academy of Sports Medicine. She holds Level 2 Certifications from Precision Nutrition and DVRT. She is also a Moderation365 Certified Nutrition Consultant. In her free time she loves to attend classical and electronic music shows, hike, fish, read and spend time with her partner.
You can find out more about Caroline and connect with her directly via her website, carolinejusterfitness.com and Instagram @carolinejuster