Finger stamina

bsterling9 · Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 1:04 pm Post subject: Finger stamina

While trying to learn barre chords, I am finding that I need more strength and stamina in my fret fingers. After about 10 minutes of barre chords, they seem to give up on me and start laying down over the strings. Can anyone suggest an aid to improve individual finger strength? Has anyone used something that REALLY works well? Thanks. God Bless.

Bates15 · Moderator Joined: 19 Feb 2002 Posts: 1084

Back in the days when I learned to play there were no gadgets to use. It was up to you to keep the good fight as we say. Now you have several gadgets, but I have no idea what they are called. Keep on practicing and the fingers will gain strenght. Nobody started paying barre chords and was able to play hours in a row Smile

George E · Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:47 am Post subject:

Building finger strength is simple. Buy a rubber ball the size of an orange, and squeeze it for a while. That's somethiing you can do while watching TV. Just keep squeezing and releasing, squeezing and releasing.

You don't want to lose flexibility while doing that, so also be sure to pause every now and then and wiggle your fingers.

Use your best judgement in picking the rubber ball. Too soft, like a Nerf ball, and you won't do yourself any good. Too hard, like a baseball, and you'll lose flexibility.

If you're like me, you probably feel the pressure of barre chords in the fleshy part of your hand at the base of your thumb. So make sure that your squeezing technique includes using your thumb and not just wrapping your fingers.

An alternative is using a lump of kid's modeling clay, like Play-Doh. Just knead that in your hand, being sure to keep your thumb involved

jeff_osu · Tiger Joined: 17 Sep 2003 Posts: 838 Location: Oklahoma

^+1 to the stressball.

In my case, it's just attempting to be ambidextrous. Instead of instinctively picking up, carrying, etc things with my right hand, I try to mix it up to build left-hand finger strength.