Hands hurting- is this ok?!

Just wanted to know what everyones thoughts were on this. I practice 2-4 hours a day (been playing for about a week now) and my hands get sore (I'm 25 so no arthritis or anything like that). I practice proper posture (keeping dips in my wrist to a minimum) but find my hands hurting often, especially around the areas below my pinky. I dont play furiously or anything, its just normal practice and I am constantly switching up what I practice at. Does this pain eventually go away as I get better? For now I am assuming that I'm sort of breaking my hands in. But in the meantime I wonder what I should do? Should I keep playing stuff even when my hands are sore or do I need to give it a rest? I wonder should I skip a day or two of practice here and there to give my muscles a rest? I really would rather not go days without practicing because I enjoy it so much. Or maybe I should just shorten my practice periods or something? I don't know. I get to thinking that I need to just keep going. I equate the whole situation to the saying "no pain, no gain", but I also don't want to screw up my hands either. Thanks in advance for your input guys and gals.

I can say you dont need to worry, when it comes to hurting, guitar is the ultimate painer in the beginning when the skin hasnt got hard. Take 2 days of and you'll see you're back to normal.

just be careful, take lots of breaks and you should be ok don't play hard for longer than 20 minutes straight without a break ^_^

oh ok, thanks for the input fellas. yea I know what u mean VictorCS, I used to play guitar in my teens (been out of practice for years now) but the pain in my hands then was more in the tips or my fingers lol. I had mild muscle pain, but more so just tissue pain where my fingers were sliding the strings. Though I don't have to develop calluses to be able to play piano, I do notice more muscle aches. I'll keep going and see how things work out. I'll admit that between all my activities my hands scarcely get a break. I draw and write a lot also. I know that when u stress muscle, in order for it to grow back stronger u must give it a good amount of rest. So thats what I will strive to do.

one of the reasons i stopped piano lessons (besides not getting better in it >.< ) is because my hands(lower arm and wrist) hurt when playing.

now i don't have a piano where i live. but i have an acoustic guitar and i hurt my hand(edge of the palm, the part ppl do karate chops) again practicing with it. something must be seriously wrong with me!!! >.<

My instructors always taught me to curl my fingers so they act like little shock absorbers. Hitting a key meant to push the curled finger onto the key.

lomtevas wrote:My instructors always taught me to curl my fingers so they act like little shock absorbers. Hitting a key meant to push the curled finger onto the key.

But its very important to not curl to much as well! Im not sure if I heard this or if I made it up myself, but I usually say to people that they should generally hold their hands and play like they where protecting a baby chicken under their hands Then you have to curl, but not to much or else you would squeeze the baby chicken to much hehe

Yes, as Andrew (I think) said before, its better to spend a few short minutes throughout the day than to go at it straight.

some one told me about this but i dont know if its true.. when pressing the key you use the force from your wrist not from the fingers.. coz wrist have bigger muscles than the fingers.. is this true??