Getting Back Into Playing Shape

The day I picked up my violin from its adjustment and bows from rehairing, after playing around for about 20 minutes after 15+ years of violinistic inactivity, I thought my left arm would fall off. Driving home, I rested my left hand at seven on the steering wheel, rested my upper arm against my ribs, and still my biceps burned. I wondered: How long will it take before I can practice for 45-60 minutes? Make it through a rehearsal? Stretch myself into playing something beyond the skills I’d developed before, as opposed to just catching up?

Four months down the road, I am in much better playing shape, but still not at full strength. Here are some precautions I took for the first three weeks or so:

• Before each practice session, I did exercises—like the one at 3:30 on this video by percussionist David Kuckhermann—to “loosen up” my wrists. (Apologies for my technical terminology. Needless to say, I am not offering medical advice here.)
• I limited practice to 30-40 minutes at a time. I usually practiced four times per week, spread out during the week. For example, I’d practice Sunday and Monday, take Tuesday off, practice Wednesday and Thursday, have my lesson (preceded by a light warmup) on Friday, and take Saturday off. 
• After the wrist exercises, my actual playing began with shifting exercises (from Whistler, I believe—I just have one page photocopied from somewhere). However, I only did the first finger and second finger shifts, first to third position and back, at the start of a practice session. Shifts on the third and fourth fingers—even putting my third and fourth fingers down—felt like too much of a strain to serve as a warmup.
• From there I moved on to playing a real piece at a slow pace. For me, the right fit was the first page or so of Kreisler’s Tempo di Minuetto.
• Next: Kreutzer etude No. 2. Not fast. Moving my fingers too quickly gave me that warning feeling of strain in my wrist and forearm, so I played slowly enough to fall under that threshold. 
• Last: Three-octave G major scale (week 1), A major scale (week 2), etc. I found that playing the scale last, after I was as warmed up as I would get, worked well for me.

Despite all these precautions, I think that a different body part (jaw, shoulder, etc.) hurt every day for the first two weeks or so. I figured that as long as the pain was moving around every day, I wasn’t doing any lasting damage!

Anyway, after a couple of weeks of the routine above, I gradually ratcheted things up: playing for 10 minutes longer, adding one practice day per week (some weeks), adding the third and fourth finger to the shifting exercises, playing faster. I let the wrist exercises fall away, and added some exercises for bow hand flexibility. Now, four months later, I still am doing the shifting exercises as a warm-up, and I still sometimes “save” my current scale and other Carl Flesch treats for last.

More often than not, by the time I have practiced for an hour (or a little more), my left hand feels fantastic: loose, warm, and strong. However, this past week, doing the A minor scale all on the D string (and arpeggios, and thirds) is provoking a little bit of left hand rebellion. So, I’m calling things off with the thirds and will make my excuses to Ms. L. at my lesson this week. I remind myself that I’m still not fully back in shape.