Are Musicians Small Muscle Athletes?

by Dr. Hannah Murray. October 15, 2020.

A few weeks ago, I came across the statement, “Musicians are small muscle athletes” and couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was like a dog with a bone. I could not put it down. I’ve seen and heard this phrase many times, but this was the first time I stopped to think about it. What does Small Muscle Athlete even mean? I started posing questions about it on my personal Instagram account (@activeviolinist) and received many comments and responses. Madeline and I also explored the topic in our October Candid Chat podcast episode and received even more input when we shared it on the @corpsonore social media pages.

The notion of musicians as small muscle athletes is a subject that many feel passionate, curious, confused, incensed, and beyond about. And I agree. It is a little confusing, and kind of an onion, in that there are many layers to peel back and ponder. That is what is so lovely about this topic: you can endlessly explore different facets of this phrase and how they relate to being a musician.

When asked if Musicians are Small Muscle Athletes on Social Media, 86% of respondents said yes!

Let’s explore the definition of athlete.

According to Merriam Webster, an athlete is defined as:

1: a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina
2: an animal (such as a horse or a dog) that competes in races or other sporting events or has qualities (such as stamina and agility) suggestive of a human athlete. (1)

Does this cover musicians? Not really.

Dictionary.com defines athletes as;

athlete [ ath-leet ]
noun a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength; a participant in a sport, exercise, or game requiring physical skill. (2)

Doesn’t exactly fit either.

The definition on Wikipedia is a little more general:

The word "athlete" is a romanization of the Greek: άθλητὴς, athlētēs, one who participates in a contest; from ἄθλος, áthlos, or ἄθλον, áthlon, a contest or feat. (3)

Yes, musicians often compete in contests, so this works. It is general enough to include music AND sports.

Here are two responses I received when I asked my social media followers on @activeviolinist to define the word athlete:

“A person who, through physical exertion, competes against others in ordered activity.”

AND

“Someone that uses their body in a unique way repeatedly for a specialized action.” (4)

I should note that both of these responses came from musicians. I like them because they make me feel like an athlete alongside Usain Bolt and Simone Biles.

What about muscles? How do we define muscles?

Here are a few loose definitions to have at hand.

Merriam Webster defines a muscle as:

Muscle noun,
1a: a body tissue consisting of long cells that contract when stimulated and produce motion
b: an organ that is essentially a mass of muscle tissue attached at either end to a fixed point and that by contracting moves or checks the movement of a body part (5).

Got it. Just vague enough, yet oddly specific. What else is out there?

Medicine Net defines muscles as the following:

Muscle: Muscle is the tissue of the body that primarily functions as a source of power. There are three types of muscle in the body. Muscle, which is responsible for moving extremities and external areas of the body, is called "skeletal muscle." Heart muscle is called "cardiac muscle." Muscle that is in the walls of arteries and bowel is called "smooth muscle." (6)

Trusty Wikipedia says:

Muscle is a soft tissue found in most animals. Muscles function to produce force and motion. They are primarily responsible for maintaining and changing posture, locomotion, as well as movement of internal organs, such as the contraction of the heart and the movement of food through the digestive system via peristalsis.
Muscle action can be classified as being either voluntary or involuntary. Cardiac and smooth muscles contract without conscious thought and are termed involuntary, whereas the skeletal muscles contract upon command. Skeletal muscles in turn can be divided into fast and slow-twitch fibers. (7)

I’m going to go out on a limb and assert that when we talk about musicians as small muscle athletes, or really any athletic endeavor, we are talking about the skeletal muscles and not the smooth muscles or cardiac muscles. We all have them and have really no control over their athletic prowess (or lack thereof).

A little more information about the types of skeletal muscle fibers mentioned above:

Slow-twitch muscles are smaller than the fast-twitch fibers. They are fatigue-resistant and focused on sustained, smaller movements and postural control. They contain more mitochondria and myoglobin, and are aerobic in nature compared to fast-twitch fibers.

Fast-twitch muscle fibers provide bigger and more powerful forces, but for shorter durations and fatigue quickly. They are more anaerobic with less blood supply. Skeletal muscles contain both types of fibers, but the ratios can differ depending on a variety of factors, including muscle function, age, and training. (8)

Did you catch that? Slow-twitch muscles are often smaller than fast-twitch muscles and are focused on sustained, smaller movements and postural control. Is this where we got the term “Small Muscle Athlete?" Possibly. But are we ONLY using these small, slow-twitch muscles when we play an instrument?

That brings up the interesting point of do we know what muscles we use when playing an instrument or singing. In most cases, the music community has no idea. Some teachers and players have a notion of the big things at play, but I would hazard a guess they couldn't tell you about the smaller muscles working hard to keep you upright, balanced, and supported. This of course is a gross generalization, as I know (and corpSonore collaborates with) many extremely knowledgeable musicians.

Maybe this is a healthier line of thinking when it comes to musicians being athletes. Perhaps it would be more helpful to ponder the different muscles and types of muscles at play - get it? Sadly, this is a conversation for another day, or more accurately, it is several conversations over many days, weeks, and months. When I read the description of both slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscles, it becomes clear that musicians use both to play their instruments.

Also, a little add-on to the “slow-twitch muscles are smaller muscles” point made above - the Transverse Abdominus is a Slow Twitch muscle, and that bad boy is not tiny. Similarly, the Scalene muscles could be considered small muscles, but they are fast-twitch and designed for movement of the head and neck, so this is not a hard and fast rule.

Next, a few examples of how the term "small muscle athlete" is used in the music world:

Whether you’re a beginner, hobbyist, or professional musician, you are inherently a small-muscle athlete. So, it’s important that you treat your body the same way an Olympic athlete would treat theirs. Injuries are common, but the avenues for prevention and healing are abundant.
Believe it or not, musicians are athletes - Small-muscle athletes.
We rely on our bodies to respond with speed, precision, flexibility, and consistency. We train, practice, study, repeat - until we've perfected a technique to such a degree that we simply can’tget it wrong. We ask our bodies to execute any kind of acrobatic episode, from up-bow staccato, to triple-tonguing, to playing the upright bass (which is an athletic event all on its own).
So, just like traditional athletes, musicians face the risk of injuries - but we hardly ever take them as seriously as we should. If an Olympic sprinter develops tendonitis, they are immediately treated by medical professionals; However, if a violist develops carpal tunnel, they likely won’t even take a day off from practicing. The multitude of times I’ve heard a colleague say they’ll just “power through” would make your head spin. (9)

Madeline and I discuss the productive side of using the term Small Muscle Athlete in this context in our October candid chat. It has its perks. Like athletes, musicians are chasing greatness, and with that endeavor comes the necessity of prioritizing personal health and wellness. Taking care of yourself with proper nutrition, movement, mental health, and so much more is essential for finding success and longevity in a music career. We love how adamant this writer is about taking your health seriously, even if using the term "small muscle athlete" as some sort of fact is technically quite misleading.

Here’s another one:

Small-muscle athletes. In the medical field, that’s the term for musicians. Musicians are prone to a range of injuries. It’s a pitfall of the profession. But unlike their large-muscle counterparts, musicians don’t get much pro-active attention when it comes to pain. As Dr. Raymond Wittstadt, attending hand surgeon at the Curtis National Hand Center at MedStar Union Memorial Hospital, puts it, “I mean even at the high school level, most sports teams will have a trainer on the sidelines. There’s nobody in the wings of the BSO saying we practiced too long today, or we repeated that passage too many times.” (10)

The emphasis here is on the lack of medical support musicians receive when compared to their sports counterparts. Interestingly, Dr. Wittstadt also teaches an injury-prevention course for musicians at Peabody Conservatory of Music. He uses the term small muscle athletes to define his musician clients. In this case, the term might derive from his work as a hand surgeon. Regardless, it is interesting to note that it permeates the medical community and draws the sad comparison of the lack of support provided to musicians as early as high school.

Here’s another one

Our tongue is one of the most important muscles in the body with the primary purpose to both swallow food and articulate speech. But for us oboists, the tongue plays the role of a champion athletic muscle for our articulation technique. For optimal technique it's our responsibility to both know our maximum articulation speed and maintain or increase that speed through dedicated practice. In essence, tonguing rapidly is an athletic endeavor for the small muscle athlete musician. So to improve fluency and speed it's useful to think like an athlete and train like one too. (11)

This one is a little frustrating. The talk of the tongue as a champion muscle but without much explanation of HOW the muscle moves, works, contracts, functions and within the greater context frames this “small muscle” discussion very much as an unhelpful example of how to effectively train muscles. In fact, this article only uses metronome drills and repetition as an example of training this athlete.

An excellent blog post by Kay Hooper, Alexander Technique teacher and Body Mapper, articulates some of our frustrations about the term. We love how deftly she explains some of the "small" muscles in the hand that are really not so small.

…Where are these small muscles that musicians use to display their prowess? Perhaps this is a reference to muscles of the hand, so let's start there. There are about 640 generally recognized muscles in the body, and about 35 of them control the movement of the hand. However, only 17 of them are actually contained within the area we consider to be the hand. The other 18 originate in the forearm, and they are much larger than the other 17. Some of them actually have the descriptor "longus" in their designations. Without these longer muscles, we would have limited movement in the hand. Without control of these larger muscles, we would not be able to perform on our instruments. (12)

I appreciate this post because it articulates the root of the issue and confusion in my case. Often, we perceive something as small, a muscle in the hand, for example, without fully appreciating or realizing where and how that muscle works in the body's broader context. Many hand muscles are not small and extend into the forearm. Musicians repeatedly move our fingers at rapid and dexterous speeds. We are (unknowingly) activating and harnessing the power of muscles that are much bigger than we realize.

A comment on this post:

HOWEVER I think the phrase could still be useful to younger music students and beginners since sports practice is more easily comprehensible, SO LONG AS the teacher re-visits the concept at a later time and clarifies that: as musicians we must be aware of our ENTIRE body. (13)

I do love the comment made on this post, and it aligns with our philosophy here at corpSonore: take care of your whole self just as an athlete would. BUT continue the education process to understand and appreciate what is at play in your body. Simply calling yourself an athlete does not make it a fact. But using the notion of training like an athlete to cultivate optimal health and harmony is immensely helpful in warding off injury and mental health issues.

Moral of the story

Musicians use muscles. Are we athletes? If that ensures you get enough sleep, drink enough water, and train like an Olympian, continually seeking input from health professionals, then yes! Call yourself an athlete. Small muscle athlete? Don’t limit yourself. Use your whole body.