WEIGHT TRAINING AND PIANO PLAYING

Hello guys, I was wondering does anyone here do weight training and piano playing? I was wondering if weight training would hinder or negatively affect your piano playing due to excess stress on the arms or muscle imbalances? Does anyone know if its a good idea to do both weight training with the arms and piano playing, is there any negative carry over effect?

I don't know if weight training you do affects piano training but what you need in order to play faster and have more control is building fast muscles in your hand and fingers instead of slow muscles in your hand and fingers. It is explained in the Fundamentals of Piano Practice (I highly recomend that you read the whole book):

http://c0431582.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/book.pdf

Check the following pages (I also added a part where the author discusses endurance and breathing):

49-51 and 129-130

But generally the kind of piano exercises you should try to do is for fast relaxed movements and not finger strength exercises like Hanon.

I used to do weight training ..dont think it matters much on actual playing ...but it did benefit me moving my piano around room

ROBIN wrote: I used to do weight training ..dont think it matters much on actual playing ...but it did benefit me moving my piano around room

+1

I do lift weights, and I do play the piano and guitar. It seems to me that lifting weights add more preassure to the huge muscles, while the instruments makes good use of the small muscles. As long as you adjust your piano practice to avoid overtraining you'll be fine. You can probably play for hours on the piano, even if you lift weights on a regulare basis, but the body needs time to adjust.

John Petrucci is a good example of weight training and play the guitar, 4 years ago he was skinny, look at him now, he's a huge bastard ^_^

try it and see what happens.

gotta say i've never met anyone who said "man i wish i wasn't this muscular." if it becomes a problem, muscle is pretty easy to lose

the late horowitz played the piano until the age of 86. at that kind of age, i don't think he has too much muscular strength to use. rather, he must have found some ways to use watever muscles he has left efficiently.

I do calithenics (pull-ups, chin-ups) and you have to mind not to overtrain... Mind the forearms which are used a lot on the piano and grips.