Flying and Playing: How Air Travel Can Disrupt The Musician’s Body
Flying and Playing: How Air Travel Can Disrupt a Musician’s Body Dr. Lou Jacobs, Chiropractor – Portland, Maine Whether you are flying to a festival, audition, tour, or vacation, the physical toll of air travel can quietly threaten your performance. Sitting for hours in cramped seats, carrying heavy gear through terminals, and adjusting to pressure changes – all of it can irritate joints, muscles, and nerves critical for playing. For musicians, these travel stressors often compound the very issues you battle in practice: shoulder tension, wrist fatigue, neck strain, low backs strain and reduced circulation. This post will help you connect those dots and travel in ways that keep your body performance-ready when you land. 1. The Airplane Seat Problem The Risk Airline seats are notoriously unsupportive. Long hours of sitting with your spine flexed forward, knees jammed, and neck tilted toward a screen compresses your lower back and tightens your hip flexors. This posture mimics bad playing form – but for hours without movement. Musicians are especially vulnerable because spinal and shoulder alignment directly affect fine motor control, breath capacity, and hand coordination. Safer Technique * Sit with your hips all the way back in the seat and...
read moreDesk Job Musician – Being a Desk Jockey and a Musician – risks – injuries – solutions
The Desk Job Dilemma: How Sitting, Typing, and Stressing Can Ruin Your Music Dr. Lou Jacobs – Portland, Maine Many musicians spend hours at desks between gigs and rehearsals: teaching lessons, composing, mixing tracks, or managing the logistics of a music career. What most don’t realize is that desk work can slowly chip away at the same biomechanics and neurology that power their performance. Poor desk posture, repetitive mousing, and the constant tension of “just one more email” create subtle but significant stress on the neck, shoulders, wrists, and spine. For musicians, these issues compound the very challenges you already face while practicing or performing. Let’s look at how common desk habits can undermine your playing—and how to fix them. 1. The Sitting Trap The Risk Hours of sitting with rounded shoulders and a forward head position shorten the hip flexors, weaken spinal stabilizers, and strain the neck and shoulders. For instrumentalists, this postural collapse mirrors what happens during long rehearsals but with no active movement to offset it. Due to hours, years and decades of desk posture, your arms may become less flexible, your breathing restricted. This VIDEO shows you how your posture impacts your biomechanics. Again,...
read moreThe Sleep Position Problem: How Sleep Can Sabotage Musicians
The Sleep Position Problem: How the Way You Sleep Can Sabotage Your Playing Dr. Lou Jacobs, Chiropractor – Acupuncturist – Portland, Maine Musicians often, and should, obsess over posture while practicing or performing—but they less often think about posture while sleeping. The truth is, we spend one-third of our lives in positions that can either heal or harm us. If your body rests in a twisted or compressed position for 6 to 8 hours a night, that stiffness, tingling, or shoulder ache you feel in the morning can directly translate into poor tone, limited reach, or reduced control of your instrument. This post explores how common sleeping positions can compound the same risks musicians face on stage and in the practice room, and how to fix them. 1. Side Sleeping: The “Safer” Option That Still Needs Attention The Risk Side sleeping is generally better for spinal alignment than stomach sleeping, but it can still create problems if your setup is off. A pillow that’s too thin lets your neck fall sideways, straining the same muscles you rely on for head and shoulder balance while playing. A pillow that’s too thick jams your neck the other way, leading to morning...
read moreThe Hidden Risks of Driving for Musicians
The Hidden Risks of Driving for Musicians: How Everyday Driving Habits Can Undermine Your Playing Dr. Lou Jacobs, Musician Health Specialist, Chiropractor & Acupuncturist – Portland, Maine Musicians spend countless hours refining technique and posture with their instruments, but few realize how much time they also spend behind the wheel. Long commutes, late-night drives to gigs, or endless touring miles can take a physical toll that creeps into your ability to play. We’re not talking about car accidents. We’re talking about the small, repetitive, cumulative stressors that musicians experience while driving. Stress that can compound the same issues you already battle with your instrument. Injury perpetuating and reinforcing factors are critical to recognize to help move beyond the injury you are dealing with, and when concerned about prevention. This post explores how driving habits can quietly sabotage your performance and offers practical, body-conscious ways to keep both your car and your body in tune. 1. The Driving Posture Paradox The Risk Driving posture often mimics poor playing posture: slouched back, forward head, shoulders rounded, and one leg extended unevenly. Over time, this compresses spinal joints, tightens hip flexors, and weakens postural stabilizers, many of the same muscles you...
read moreThe Kitchen Danger Zone for Guitarists: How Cooking Risks Can Threaten Your Hands, Wrists, and Music
The Kitchen Danger Zone for Guitarists: How Cooking Risks Can Threaten Your Hands, Wrists, and Music For guitarists, and other people too, the kitchen is often a creative outlet. It is another place where rhythm, timing, and precision matter. But few realize that the same space where you sauté and slice can also be a danger zone for your hands, wrists, and shoulders. The repetitive, awkward, or forceful motions used in the kitchen can compound the same physical stress patterns that affect your guitar playing. This can lead to confusing causes, and hard to identify perpetuating factors, for injuries that you are tying to heal from or prevent. This post will help you connect many of the dots. Remember, as dumb as some of these suggestions may sound, they aren’t as dumb as having had the information, ignoring it, and ending up with a career altering injury that results in surgery and relearning how to play your instrument around the scar tissue that impairs your finger movement. 1. The Knife Grip: Cutting Into Dexterity The Risk Repeated chopping with a dull knife or poor wrist posture can inflame the small tendons and joints in your hand, especially the thumb...
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