I've certainly read this before, however are there any studies that back this up?
I played guitar before I got RSI. Now, I can't play for more than a few minutes at a time without ending up in pain - despite my RSI being under control for work purposes.
Actually, there's nothing quite like playing guitar in terms of causing me pain well after finishing the activity. Certain things like lifting heavy furniture, or using a screwdriver cause pain quicker but it also goes away pretty fast. 5 minutes of guitar will result in pain and weakness until the next day. Granted, it's not an enormous amount of pain, but it's certainly enough to be annoying. It sucks, because despite not being very good, I've always enjoyed playing guitar.
I should add that I also certainly never overdid playing either; I've never played a live show in my life and have never taken it too seriously, was just a hobby.
I wasn't trying to say that playing guitar was a treatment or therapy for RSI symptoms. Obviously any type of hand exercise can make things worse while your hand/wrist/ligaments are inflamed or you're otherwise subject to flareups of RSI.
The general idea in this thread was that increasing finger/hand strength could be a preventative action for people worried about RSI, and I think that's a reasonable train of thought - and playing guitar certainly does improve hand strength.
I think it's fair to say that no preventative action is 100% effective for the kinds of things we're talking about. I'm pretty sure other activities and factors, including genetics and luck play a lot into whether that increased hand strength is enough to prevent RSI in any individual case.
I do think it's good to bring it up as a warning though - it's very possible for any activity that uses the hands a lot to contribute to RSI symptoms rather than help, and people should really pay attention to what their body is telling them :)
Sorry to hear you're not able to play as much as you'd like - it's been one of my favorite things to do when I need to get away from the computer, and I'm super grateful it hasn't caused my RSI to return.
I played guitar before I got RSI. Now, I can't play for more than a few minutes at a time without ending up in pain - despite my RSI being under control for work purposes.
Actually, there's nothing quite like playing guitar in terms of causing me pain well after finishing the activity. Certain things like lifting heavy furniture, or using a screwdriver cause pain quicker but it also goes away pretty fast. 5 minutes of guitar will result in pain and weakness until the next day. Granted, it's not an enormous amount of pain, but it's certainly enough to be annoying. It sucks, because despite not being very good, I've always enjoyed playing guitar.
I should add that I also certainly never overdid playing either; I've never played a live show in my life and have never taken it too seriously, was just a hobby.