About two months back, I started getting sore in my wrists and forearms when I practiced piano. It was at a time when I was perfecting my stroke and really working hard at strength, having increased my paddle usage and seeing good results.
I did not want tendonitis to develop, nor to watch it go towards carpal tunnel syndrome. Seeing many people with wrist braces made me want to get this treated immediately!
I went to my physical therapist and asked her if Graston could help with my problem. I thought that generally, tendonitis comes from overuse and tight muscles which don’t get released, as well as putting the joints and muscles in awkward alignment when performing an action. So correcting my form while playing piano was not too hard. I just sat further away from the piano and my wrists are straighter. But performing a good catch while swimming and then pulling back in a shallow way does put more stress on the forearms. Couple that with piano playing and you get sore forearms!
It turned out Graston was great for this. As I get Graston applied to any muscle on my body, I find that the rough handling of the muscle, while painful during treatment, seems to relax and release tension when the treatment is done. It’s uncanny and my physical therapist says that they are still studying why this happens. Maybe the muscle gets abused so much that it just says “Enough! Uncle!” and just relaxes. Ha. I am sure there is a more scientific, neuromuscular explanation.
So she takes her metal tools and scrapes up my forearms. It hurt like crazy in the beginning! But man did it work well. It kept my muscles loose after workouts and piano practice and the soreness was under control.
In the off season now, I just got Graston on my forearms and they didn’t hurt at all. The lack of swimming these last few weeks has taken so much stress off them that piano playing by itself didn’t tighten up the muscles enough to cause soreness.
I can see where Graston applied to the forearms can definitely help the athlete, the musician, and ultimately us computer techno-generation of mousers and typists from getting sore wrists.