Research shows that between 79 and 90% of musicians
suffer from pains.
Playing hours and hours every day for years is a major cause,
but a musician's nomadic lifestyle as well.
Mitsyndezal has been teaching specific solution
to health professionals and musicians for almost 20 years.
That's where Isha Shimeshalska and me,
Metrice Spencer, met.
And we joined our forces to do some research.
From the 14th of February to the 21st of March, 2012,
we conducted two epidemiological studies,
a classic paper version in Polish and a web version
in both French and Polish.
Hypothesis number one, the more traveling,
the more pain in musicians.
Hypothesis number two, appropriate physical preparation
diminishes pain in musicians.
This was the first time these subjects were researched.
Starting out, our goals were, have a better understanding
of musicians' problems and their relation to travels.
Propose possible solutions.
Talk about this with the music world.
Our statistician played a key role on our team.
He helped us formulate our gravity index and cross
analysis.
To put it simple, he made everything easier and faster.
The Nordic questionnaire is the most popular
to study musculoskeletal pains.
Using it, Dr. Anle Fonsso Arsie created a specific one related
to pains in musicians.
After adding questions and a pre-test,
we had our own questionnaire on Mitsyndezal,
Travels in Prevention.
From three superior conservatories in Poland,
we had 235 students fill in the questionnaire.
After checking for errors, we ended up with 209.
A classical study has a few advantages.
A population more representative, face-to-face meetings,
and today it's the only scientifically valid method.
After entering our questionnaire into Google Docs,
we spread it through our different social media channels.
Digital word of mouth got us 186 filled in surveys
from professionals, non-professionals, and students.
When we analyzed our data, the general results
were similar in both our studies and comparable
to previous research.
91% of all musicians complained of pain
in the past 12 months.
The areas they complained the most about, the neck, upper back,
lower back, shoulder, and hand.
These regions are related to a musician's posture
and the use of his arms and hands.
The three areas that make a musician diminish or stop
playing his instruments are first the wrist and hand,
second the neck, and third the fingers.
These regions are very worrisome for a musician.
Our specific results were more surprising.
We only found one relationship between pain and traveling.
The more a musician does long tours,
the more time he has to stop playing.
The more successful a musician, the more he tours.
So if touring a lot can cause him to stop playing,
it's important they learn to prevent these problems.
Practicing a sport is good.
We discovered a tendency that diminishes pain
and the number of musicians having to stop playing.
Musicians that practice racket sports
and surprisingly swimming and bike riding have more pain.
Those that play ball games and weight lifting less pain.
Philippe Scheming suggested that how you practice
is more important than what sport you practice.
One of our most important results,
appropriate physical preparation helps musicians
avoid pain.
All these results are important for performing arts medicine,
which is a growing field.
So the better we can help musicians
to get rid of their pains and prevent them.
As a musician, it's important to understand
the basics of how the body works.
Our line of gravity should go through our ears, shoulders,
pelvis, knees, and feet.
And our head, shoulders, and pelvis
should be parallel to the ground.
This good posture will correctly position our shoulders,
that lifts our arm, who frees our forearm
to position our hands and fingers.
So our movements are precise, rapid, and more enduring.
The nerves going to our head and arms
leave the spine at our neck.
A bad posture will cause stress and tension there,
so the nerves won't control the muscles as well.
Our movements will be less precise, slower,
and less enduring.
To avoid this, we need to understand two key aspects.
First, our support, standing on our feet,
sitting on our feet, and pelvis.
Second, our head moves independently from our body.
These are the basic principles for an appropriate physical
preparation, one piece of our health pie, the other ones,
rest, hygiene, balanced biomechanics, and a good diet.
These five aspects are important for our body.
These five aspects are important to keep our bodies
functioning at their best, and we need to fit them
into a musician's nomadic lifestyle
so they can fully nurture their body-mind relationship
and express their creative soul.
And that's what we do in our office in Warsaw and on tour.
Isha as a musician's physical and mental preparator,
and me as a chiropractor for musicians.
And we love to talk about this, so send us an email.
Contact at MusicalState.pl for Isha Szymichalska,
and mspenser at rockercortex.com for me, Matt Spenser.
Thank you.
