Taking a Break/Tired Hands

My suggestion, and what I do, is visit a massage therapist and have her/him concentrate on your hands,fingers, lower and upper arms and shoulders. You won't believe the relief you will get. I am 51 and don't heal as fast as I used to and boy this really helps me recover more quickly. And drink lotsa water afterwards.

 

Stretch, stretch, stretch...make it a habit. It's the one thing that is never taught to guitar players. Your hands go through a lot year after year.

 

I say take a break only if you do feel even a little pain.
Otherwise play through it.

What about technique? What makes your hand feel weak?

Sometimes you can edit big chords down to manageable nuggets.
Thus reducing the difficulty.

Maintaining a straight wrist is important for me. That means the
neck is close to my upper torso/face. It doesn't hang low.

What kind of music/guitar are you playing??

 

Good question...

Yeah, sometimes my hands get tired...I generally try to take it easy on them when that happens for a day or two...

We tend to think of practicing or playing sometimes as a manual activity, but I don't think that practicing that primarily involves pushing the hands harder really works, at least for me.

Ear practice and mind practice is just as important, if not moreso. Push them and the fingers will follow.

Of course, I'm saying this having never heard or seen you play so I'm kinda just stabbing in the dark here, but...does this ring familiar at all?

 

I find that a day or two off now and then helps rejuvenate my hands and forearms, which do get sore if overused.

I think you should think longer term - considering guitar playing as a part of your lifestyle. Maybe 4-5 hours a day is too much for good health over the long term. Perhaps you would do better with 2 hrs everyday and not even needing to ask this question.

There are diminishing returns with practice time. The mind loses focus after a while and continued rehearsal is of limited value. One hour of quality time is better than two hours of unfocused practice - and much easier on the hands. AND, recent brain research which has been shared and discussed on this forum indicate that gains are solidified during sleep and that simply thinking about the act of playing is almost as beneficial as actually doing it. This makes the case for more frequent practice of shorter duration.

Maybe some of your practice time could be replaced with other useful things - listening to music, practicing your singing, ear training, booking your band, exercising, etc.

 

OK, I'm extrapoloting here from general "tiredness" complaints that I hear all the time in my medical practice.
THe main issue her eis the amount of time you are spneding. It is natural to feel tired at teh end of a long session of any kind of activity.

As a simple analogy, I ask people, "at the end of a long journey, does your car have a full tnak of fuel or an empty one?"
Quite somply put, you are wearing yourself out. The fact aht you can play for so long menas your endurance is probably pretty good, and your technique is probably very good also. You have not mentioned pain, so I deduce that you are not injuring yourself, just running out of gas.
Now, there may well be plenty of guys that can play for longer, but they are have probably bee in training for longer as well.
As the other Ken suggested, you may benefit from breaking your time into segments where your hands and arms get a rest and you do other things.
Regards
The other Ken

 

Don't forget Ear Fatigue ...

Letting one's ears rest is crucial ...