Warm Ups and an Awesome Mullet

My warmups are pretty lame most of the time.. and I feel like I'm being lame most of the time by doing them. But when a few friends have told me that they have had wrist and arm problems. I felt like I had to make sure that I warmed up to avoid the inevitable wrist surgery in my future if I didn't warm up properly. Not long after hearing from different drummer friends that warming up properly has helped them avoid surgery or surgery again. I began to contract a bit of repetitive fatigue in my wrist from my own lack of warmup routine. I feel, in retrospect, that it was a combination of poor warm ups, years of developing bad habits, and just laziness to be honest. So I decided to take a bit of my friends advice and decided to really get on the warm up train.

Warm ups aren't a new thing in music, sports, and in academia. So why after all these years was I so reluctant to warm up? To try and possibly save myself from an impending injury that would cost me thousands of dollars and months away from my drum kit? I decided that I was being downright irresponsible. So I started to develop a series of warm ups and I turned to Youtube for help.

It seems that I always land back in Dave Wecklerville (As my mom so lovingly called Dave Weckl) Maybe it's because he's one of the most fluid players I've ever heard or seen play. Or maybe it's because I just LOVE to watch his hair fly around like someone just scared a racoon out of the air conditioning ducts. And I digress.. (sigh). So I happened upon the Video Back to Basics. It helped me determine the best warm ups for me through a lot of natural things that I just so happen to play when I'm behind the kit. I think it can and should be different for most people and for me it seems warming up takes a bit longer because I'm just a big guy with lots of tension in my muscles. So I developed some things that I do before I play. I definitely stretch a bit and I warm up a bit also. In my ebook that is coming out next month I will be explaining what I do to warmup and how I address the drum kit.

I have to say that with my friends recommendations and a bit of sudden awareness to my own impending doom for my wrists; I curbed my problems over time. In my future ebook I'll describe how I address the kit before a rehearsal or performance and go over a few helpful warmups that you might be interested in. They'll be in a Video format for you to easily see and hear how they work. It's not rocket science or hard math.. Just something practical for you and I to take away and to save our wrists from a possible sidelining surgery. But just for your enjoyment, I included one of my favorite excerpts and a bit of inspiration to how I came about creating my own warmups. So Check Dave out and let's all wonder and dream of how we can attain that Mullet of his... Oh yea and his chops as well :)  God Bless my friends!