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I used to use really heavy picks, even metal ones. But when I try to pick fast or trill it became much more difficult because the heavier picks don't flex as much. Haha, maybe I need to be a baby and use lighter picks....

Same thing happens to me but ONLY when I play shows.
During practice, I'm fine and can play the songs over and over with no problem.
I get super nervous playing live so I'm pretty sure the cause is inadvertent muscle tensing.

It's the same pain I used to get when playing thumb heavy video games.

I use Jim dunlop 1mm's, thick, nice grip on them and they still have just a bit of flex, good for heavy strings. As far as learning to relax, it's just something you need to be conscious of and try to work on. Spend a few minutes practicing alone every day and at first it will feel awkward and wrong, but over time you will get usedd to it. It's all about training muscle memory, so that it becomes something you are NOT thinking about and aware of. At first, I would not recomend you do this in a band setting as you will be fumbling a bit as you try to change things up. If you do it every day within a month you'll notice a difference and it won't feel strange anymore. Learning a few stretches will help you out as well. Simple joint rotation will warm things up and loosen up the involved muscle groups.

I get forearm cramps (no matter what time of the month, TWSS, etc) on some neck widths almost instantly, and it takes a long time to go away. I used to call it "importitis", the old Squiers/Epiphones etc were notorious for inducing it in me, and a Tele does it every time regardless of make.

I'm also mother of huge, and probably shouldn't even be playing normal guitar - it's like a kid's toy compared to normal peoples.

MEC wrote:Same thing happens to me but ONLY when I play shows.
During practice, I'm fine and can play the songs over and over with no problem.
I get super nervous playing live so I'm pretty sure the cause is inadvertent muscle tensing.

It's the same pain I used to get when playing thumb heavy video games.

i'm exactly the same, except i've never been much for video games. i can practice solid for hours with no problems, but sometimes at a show my hand gets so cramped that i can barely finish a 40 minute set. i've worked a bunch on technique and it has helped. the more frequently we play shows the less i have problems, probably cause i'm less nervous. i wear my guitar a little higher and it helps, but don't worry, i still look cool. and i've recently started moving up to heavier picks, which might be helping. i'm not sure, but it's definitely not helping my profound string breaking problem. the weird thing is, it's getting worse as i get older. it would kind of happen here and there when i was younger, but then i took a 5 year break from playing shows. it was worse than ever when i started back. i've been back to playing shows for several years now and it's still a problem, but better than it was a while back.

Hmmm. I've gotten so used to the large sized picks I use (I believe they're Clayton "Claymores" ) but I guess looking into some thicker ones might be good. I need a good medium between something that'll pick good one single strings, and also let me strum really fast on chords.