Month: March 2013

Drummer’s Gloves

In my recent effort to make myself healthier, you may recall that I’ve been playing my drums more often than I’d been playing them over the last year.  Instead of once per week, I’ve been going three times a week.

The downside there is that my hands have been hurting a lot, and I’ve been getting tons of blisters.  You’d think after nearly twenty years of playing that I’d have calluses on my hands, but I don’t.   So each time I’d play, I’d come home with gaping wounds on my hands, which was terrible.

I decided to try wrapping my fingers in medical tape, which worked fine for a few weeks but wasn’t a viable solution.  It ended up that the tape would fall off from the sweat after a while, even though it was “water proof.”

I had tried drummer’s gloves back when I was in my late teens, and I ended up shredding them to bits after just a week.  I either play too hard, or the gloves weren’t very good, and they ended up in pieces.

After ten plus years of thinking they wouldn’t work, I decided to give them another try.  They arrived on Thursday, and I brought them with me for Saturday’s session.  I may have gotta a size too small, but otherwise it worked out well.  The blisters that I developed Saturday were much smaller than the last time I played a week ago, and there was literally no pain at all in my hands.  Overall I was pretty satisfied.

The one downside was that because it was the first time I was using them, they left quite a mess on my hands.  See the before and after photos below:

Before

With Glove – Before

After

Without Glove – After

You can see there that there’s a ton of leftover fuzzies on my hands. Not the end of the world, but it was a surprise to take the glove off and see that.

I also think I may need to re-order and get a large instead of the medium.  The medium was a bit tight and may have lead to the few little blisters that I did get.  They weren’t uncomfortable, but they were certainly tight.

Overall, worth the money. We’ll see how they hold up over the next few jam sessions. My gut tells me they probably won’t, but it’ll be nice to be surprised and have them just last.

While we’re talking about drumming (and by we, I mean me), I’m thinking I want to get some more cymbals.  Sure, I have plenty, but I’m thinking I’d like some more smaller ones.  When I first started playing 19 years ago, I found that I liked bigger crashes better — the 18″ ones were my favorite.  Now that I’m in my ’30s, I find myself preferring the 16″ ones, and am wanting to try out some 14″ ones, as well.  It’s nice to be able to afford the luxuries of just buying them for myself. I know many of the guys I chat with on the Pearl Drummer’s Forum have to work hard and save their money to afford a new cymbal.  I feel bad for them, and appreciate how lucky I’ve been.

I haven’t started losing any weight with the additional workouts, if you were wondering.  I feel skinnier, but I think the lack of weight loss is due to me gaining muscle in its place.  Not a bad thing, I suppose.  I haven’t changed my diet at all, either, because I’m terrible at being healthy.  But hey, I’m trying.

Hittin’ The Gym

It’s been a number of years since I wrote anything about going to the gym, or being healthy. But that time has come again. I realized a few weeks ago in going to Drum Time that I was getting winded running up the three flights of stairs to get to my space, and then getting tired too quickly. Specifically the muscles in my arms and wrists.

So I set off on going to the gym at my complex. In addition to my new Drum Time schedule of three times a week, I’m going to try to go to the gym three or four times, too. Nothing major, I don’t want to kill myself, just enough to be healthy. So,e treadmill or bike time, and some light free weights to get some muscle back in my arms and wrists, which should help with the drumming stamina.

I feel pretty good after today’s 45 minute workout, which included a mile and a half on the treadmill at a 5.5 incline, and a few sets of free weights with the dumb bells. My arms are going to be sore tomorrow in addition to my calves. I think the incline may have been a bit much for my second day of exercising, but we’ll see tomorrow.

I decided to take Friday off entirely, to give myself a long weekend. Which worked out well with all the errands I had to do. My dad moved a week ago and I’ve been helping clean up the empty house in preparation for being sold, and that’s included a number of trips over there to meet people to buy some of the unwanted antique furniture. It’s hectic, but I don’t mind helping out.

It’s back to work tomorrow, which is good. I’ve got tons of irons in the fire. So to speak, and need to get to work on a bunch of those irons before they get backed up. (Is that even a thing, do the irons get backed up?)

I suppose being busy isn’t the worst thing ever. Setting myself daily goals (thanks to Wunderlist, the best task manager for every operating system on earth) has helped immensely. Having a daily routine has helped quite a bit, too. Not that I was a giant mess a few weeks ago, but having some sort of regiment has made me feel better, in some strange way.

The week ahead will be another busy one. Starting a new (and huge) project, finishing up one more, and continuing one more ongoing project. Based on past weeks, that should help the week go by quickly, which is always nice. It always seems that time is relative based on how busy you are. Time doesn’t actually go by faster when you’re busy, it just feels like it does. Time goes by at the same rate it always does.

That’s all I’ve got today. You’re welcome.