Musicians have been aptly described as “small-muscle athletes.” Day by day, their work entails mastering the physical execution of their instrument or voice. Although I have never had any sort of serious involvement with sports, I have often imagined parallels between the life of a classical musician and that of an athlete whose sport involves the performance of a pre-planned routine, such as a figure skater or gymnast. Flutists and figure skaters alike dedicate themselves to teaching the body to express specific creations via movement, be it triple tonguing or a triple salchow.
A couple summers ago, I wanted to explore the possibility of increasing my overall physical strength. Previous attempts at going to the gym resulted in some unpleasant shoulder pain. Therefore, this time around, I chose to enlist the help of a personal trainer. Through his instruction, I started to recognize ways in which my work at the gym “pumped up” my time spent with the flute. Interestingly, the more mechanically simple, yet physically taxing nature of working with weight machines, relative to flute playing, led me to gain fresh perspectives.
Here are a few key concepts:
1. The importance of form: “Form” refers to the manner in which one uses the body when performing a physical exercise; it encompasses posture as well as how one moves to execute a given task. Yes, the arms travel downward during a pulldown, but the shoulder blades are the origin point for this movement.
The repetitive nature of working with weight machines provided me ample opportunity to reflect on my form. I would often ask myself, “Where am I working from?” This questioning of from where I was getting my strength began to present itself during my flute practice, too. In performing intervals, for instance, I would examine my use of embouchure and air from this perspective. Could I, say, rely more on my embouchure and less on force of air when making a large ascent into the upper register?
2. The value of incremental advancement: Working with a newly increased amount of weight at the gym can make it more difficult to maintain good form. When form deteriorates, the risk for injury rises. To ensure a safe workout, increase weight incrementally and with patience, listening to your body’s signals along the way.
In my own experience, the process of increasing weight has unfolded much more slowly than I anticipated. I have had to go back to lighter weight at times in order to review form as I do not want to leave the gym with aches and pains that interfere with my flute playing. The slow pace of this process encouraged me to examine the rate at which I increase challenges during my practice time on the flute. An area that has been of particular interest to me is the effects of increases in tempo on my physical use. I want to feel light and free in my neck, back, shoulders, arms, and fingers across all tempos at which I choose to play. The patient, steady process of increasing weights at the gym has led me to increase my practice tempos in smaller increments than ever before. I attribute this change to having a new angle of awareness on how challenge impacts physicality.
3. Managing challenges with detachment: Working with a trainer, and eventually going to the gym on my own were both new challenges for me. Many of the physical exercises my trainer taught me were also unfamiliar and challenging. As I began working out, I used various strategies to cope with the difficulties (and still do!). Sometimes I coached myself into a state of relaxed focus. Sometimes I took a short break in the middle of set. Sometimes I reduced the weight for the next set. Sometimes I laughed. And, sometimes I needed to do all of these things in order to make it through whatever physical task my trainer directed me to complete.
Lifting weights continues to be something I am learning to do. I have no specific end goal in mind except for doing the best I can with the time I allotted for my workout. I feel pretty detached from it all—an easy task since becoming a professional athlete is not something I am aiming to accomplish. Whatever progress I make is sufficient reward in itself.
The practice of managing challenges during workouts, and my mindset of detachment at the gym have had a healthy influence on my flute playing. Like many musicians, I have developed an attachment to outcomes as I practice and perform, which is not surprising since music is my chosen craft and profession. Making mistakes has, at times, left me feeling like a less valuable player and person. Wanting to avoid such unpleasant feelings, I have, on multiple occasions, procrastinated on practicing materials with which I have more pronounced difficulties.
My strategies for managing challenges at the gym—talking myself into a relaxed and focused state, taking a mini rest, diminishing the severity of the task at hand, and adopting a more light-hearted outlook have all helped me embrace musical difficulties with greater ease and immediacy. In addition, through the mindset of detachment, the process of engaging with my work, rather than its outcomes, has become more my focus. It turns out that exercising at the “judgment free zone” (one of the taglines of my current gym, for those of you who don’t catch my drift here) has helped me learn to be less judgmental of myself as a musician.
Healthy, efficient use of the body. Slow, steady advancement of skill. Engaging with challenges in a productive manner. I have studied all of these concepts throughout my years of playing the flute. By taking on the habit of going to the gym, an unfamiliar activity that presented me with repetitive, yet hefty challenges, I had not only the mental space but also the practical need to reflect further upon the necessity of those principles in order to thrive, be it at a weight machine, in the practice room, or within any other setting where one is looking to expand physical capabilities.