What is/are the best way(s) of dealing with back pain while playing tenors? I'm going into my first year of playing quints after playing bass drum #3 last season.

What are the advantages/disadvantages of using a back brace...etc? thanks.

I have the same problem... I wore a back brace for a few parades and it helped me out with the support.. The pain wasn't as bad as it would be if I hadn't worn one. But there still is pain.

A disadvantage is when I wore a back brace once for a parade and while marching UPHILL the thing became unstrapped and fell off and then the pain was worse than ever.... :'(

Back braces not only help your back, but improve your posture. They can also work as a girrdle if you have a beer belly.

a back brace doesn't really help me with pain in instances such as during a parade but it's a real relief afterwords since i don't stay sore. i always where a back brace during practice b/c i fell outside of a stadium once and screwed my back up so i don't remember what it's like marching without one really.

Post# #88984

We already talked about this for snare. I already said how I feel in the thread. I think the same thing applies for any drum.

Thats a good point. When I put on a snare drum it's not nearly as heavy as tenors are. I guess the only real remedy is to wear your drums as much as possible to get used to them. I used to have that problem with snare, but now that I've played tenors, carrying the snare is nothing.

Post#88984 Sorry about the I accidentaly put "#" in the post number.

Anyway, since you two both started in on this crap...

F.Y.I., I play tenors, thank-you very much. Anyways, so what if tenors weigh "10X" more than snares. The same methods still work! Also, in case you're curious, the tenors I play are Pearl Championships, some of the heaviest tenors for those of you that don't know.

Thanks for playing!

*EDIT*

Also, quintdrummergrl, I know this is a bit late. But welcome to DLO!

I wasn't trying to "play" anything and im still not. I wasn't talking "crap" either. All I said was that tenors are heavier. I am also marching Pearl Championships, the large set. Tone it down! I'm not trying to start arguements here.

I'm not sure about that. We had Pearl Championships, and I can assure you, our Dynasty tenors are MUCH heavier. As far as back pain, at bodybuilding.com you can find lower back exercises which should help with the pain, by increasing muscle mass in that area.

i wore a brace for allk of camp and most practices in early season, but i slowly moved out of it and i dont feel that much pain anymore

Well, on my line, we have a few ways of dealing with that.

1) Everyone on our line owns a backbrace. I think they are great, considering they help with your posture (which ultimatly helps with backpain).

2) Some of us do 'core training'. It's basically special lifting and exercises to help build your mid section and upperbody. It's helped us alot a lot.

and...

3) I take some Advil. I know it might just all be in my head, but I find it helpful.

anyways... hope this helps!

I've decided to wear a back brace, atleast, at first. Now I'm contemplating... Should I always wear it (for every time I practice at home, rehearse with the line, competition, game, parade) or should I try to not depend on it and slowly stop using it? Thanks.

Well, wearing a back brace isn't a bad habit b/c it helps your posture and relieves some back pains... so there's no need to stop using it. But that doesn't mean you don't have to work-out and only depend on the back brace. I suggest you to do some workout in the lower back area regularly but also wear back brace for the reasons I've mentioned earlier.

If you depend soley on the back brace then it will over time (possibly a short period of time) you will actually loose muscle strenght and endurance. Go ahead and use it to start off, but slowly work your way off of it. That is of course if you don't want to be dependent on the brace. Don't forget thought when you work out, any muscle, they come in a set. Another words you will want to work on your back and abs. An example I got from on of my weight lifting instrcutor was he had a friend who, in his youth, did nothing but workout his chest muscles. When he got older his chest muscles pulled his shoulders forward giving him a hunch back appearance. That is why you want to work a muscle and its counter part: Back/Abs, Biceps/Triceps, Pecs/Delts, etc.

So, if you don't want to be reliant on a back brace, work out slowly. Build up slowly and if you notice any pain (not talking about soreness) take weight off and go from there. Don't forget to work your abs along with you back to complete the set and you should be good to go.

"Next!! Hi how are you, the doctor will see you now"

I'll be a freshman tenor player this year at my high school (this doesn't happen very often), and I've found that the biggest problem I have is with the back pain. I'm a tall guy, but I'm sorta skinny, so I think I get affected by it more than the upper classmen. I can play a lot better with the tenors on a stand, but when I have to strap into the harness my playing and my mark-time go to crap. I have some long parades and plenty of contests/football games this year, so what would be the best thing for a young player like me to do to build up endurance?

I found that the best thing to do for back pain is to put the tenors on all the time without a back brace. None of the line at my H.S. uses back braces, and no one has ever asked about them, and we still survive. Endurance is all about getting used to weight on your back for long periods of time. Just make sure you drink enough water to prevent cramps, and don't mind the pain. It'll go away after the couple days anyway. There's always the saying: No pain, no gain.

I dont know if its my carrier,I play 4th bass,and that drum is so much heavier than the tenors our school uses(Pearl Championship Series).I believe its just less balanced so its not as light as it feels when i put the quads on.Can anyone explain this?

Here is my philosophy on dealing with “tenor pain.” You have to practice smart when you play such a heavy instrument such as tenors. Tenors are considerably heavy due to all the hardware and amount of wood. So, I believe in using tenor stands for about 70% to 80% of the time. Then for the last 30% to 20% of the time use your harness. This helps a great deal to prevent any pain and also gives you some time to work your muscles out as well at the end. This is how my tenor line deals with it.

-TritonDrumBum

However, most of the time drumlines spend their time marching around. Kind of a weird concept for marching band, but hey....what can ya do. Using stands when you can is a good idea, but for the small amount of time that most lines aren't moving, it isn't worth dragging them out. Just depends on the logistics of your line really.

when I played tenors, I remember countless times I had guard peeps on my back and massagin it(sorta fun) but I basically had to do stretches/exercise before and after practices/performances. I don't know how many guys have worked their way through the line (bass, tenors, then snare) but I have, when I got to tenors, the pain was kickin it, IT HURTS :-/

I was referring to when a line warms-up. That is when they should use stands; although we could invent a stand with wheels that could be rolled across the field…. Well, maybe not.

- TritonDrumBum

Osteoporosis is the process of the bones losing their strength and mass, thus becoming porous. That's from a combination of old age and a lack of calcium in the diet. You are thinking of Scoliosis, where the spine curves out of natural alignment.

Well, I think if you did a lot of back exercises and simply built up endurance to wearing the drums, then your back will be fine. If you always put them on stands and only wear them for parades, football games, contests, etc., then it'll be worse on you when you're actually performing. And I'm pretty sure that scoliosis is something you're born with- not something you can actually develop on your own.

Recently, I haven't been as concerned about back pain. Now I'm more worried about what my body can actually handle since I often am on the verge of passing out. I never actually have passed out but I feel as though I barely make it through a practice. So what is going to happen when August comes and the temperatures are warmer and practices are longer?

The best thing I've learned to treat tenor back pain would be to suck it up and live with soreness....I know it's a tough world out there, but nothing works for me...(oh and some of us have a few things extra to carry ) I know it's really tough, especially when you wear them day in and day out, living on four hours of sleep or less (Then you wake up and can't move SERIOUSLY!!!) You just gotta force yourself. Hey, you signed up for it the day you made tenors. Have fun. Pain= another part of life. Oh heating pads and exercize may help some.

I'm going into my fourth year playing tenors at my high school, and I don't get back pains unless I've been wearing my tenors for a long time..
On a side note, as a traditional-style marching band, we wear our tenors rather high (as high as the Yamaha R-M t-bar carriers can go, including with the J-bars) so that we get full chair steps while marching (think TBDBITL). So we have to deal with the weight at a higher position, whether that helps or not... I don't know.
My freshman year I felt a lot of back pain, but I worked through it and did a lot of exercises to work my back. I never got to use stand (my high school has only two stands, we couldn't find the second one my freshman year when there were only two tenor players, but found it my sophomore year so I got a stand), and I think it actually helped me. I got used to grinning and bearing it. No pain, no gain. I dealt with it and now I'm fine.

The truth is... the human body is not meant to have a drum strapped on to it. Plain and simple. Plus, there are scientific theories stating that numerous humans experience back pain as we are still getting used to standing upright. Hopefully the drummers of the future will have evolved to have stronger backs.

Yee-haw! I just got quints on our line as a freshman 2 days ago, (camp is now) And it friggin' hurts! I haven't been doing much about it, but I will probably just do exercises an such, no new-fangled doohickeys for me!
By the way, we use the Yamaha AVS (I think...) carriers, and the bottom of the fiberglass part that supposedly curves around you digs into my stomach, it hurts like crap. I'm kinda disfiguered so the upper part of my hip bones poke out, I'm a little skinny. Both edges of the carrier scrape right into them , and I'm not aloud to bust the carrier even though we have a few dozen.

First of all, congrats on getting into tenors off the bat, not too easy any freshman to do.

As for back pain, this isn't necessarily the best way to combat this, but it's the technique I used and it worked fine for me. Go into a pool (you'll want to anyway during the summer) hang your feet over the edge and do under water situps. Make sure your back touches the wall of the pool (don't hit your head) and the muscles used to push your body down are the same muscles used to keep you from toppling w/ tenors. Another good way is to stop being a little [expletive deleted] about it and just deal with it and wear them all the time. I don't care if the rest of the line has stands, that just means when they drop during tracking, you'll still be alive cuz you're used to wearing them.

Also, being a frail, skinny drummer when I started I also had the problem w/my carrier digging into my bones. I haven't really found anything around this in the beginning. You will most likely have perpetual bruises for about a year. If you keep doing the pool thing I mentioned and you continue to march w/good technique, your abs will gradually develop and by year 2 you'll have a stomach to keep that crap off of your bones.

BTW, the bones thing my skinny friend was talking about is way worse than sore back muscles. You can massage muscles, you can't massage bruised bones. Well, you can, but it does nothing but hurt like a [expletive deleted].

I just deal with it, but i get more pain in my legs from pointing my toes way up. I keep on trying to remember to stretch before practice, but I usually forget. Stay hydrated, and keep a chair right behind you if your practicing inside, that way when the awful wind instruments spend 20 minutes tuning and messing up the song without the drums playing, you can give yourself a break without taking them off.

By the way core strength exercises also help your posture, back problems and belly problem, and are highly recommended

I just get used to it. After about two weeks of band camp and some practices your back should have gotten used to it.

Our Line has us use stands for half the time during practices, and harnesses the other half. Once band camp starts we just wear them all the time so we can get used to it. It hurts at first, but after a while you gain back strength

We have a two week band camp and our drum instructor lets us use our stands as much as we can. Although, if we give him trouble or screw off, he'll make us wear them as a punishment.

One word MOTRIN. Painkiller that helped a little. My back was still sore, and another word JACUZZI. Nice warm massage for the back. If you don't have one, like me, just suck it up. This year is my first year and they do hurt. Oh well, next year they won't hurt as much.

DON'T USE MOTRIN, or any other drugs for that matter. Get yourself into shape. Start working out, if you have access to a gym either at your school or YMCA, etc. they usually have some machines that are designed for strengthening up your back. Get in there, work out, and make your muscles stronger. The reason I say not to use pain killers is because you are more likely to hurt yourself if you can feel the pain. It's like athletes with cortisone shots, they use them to get through the pain, but end up causing more damage because they cant feel things tearing, etc. Again, get in shape and the pain will me minimal to non-existent.

Actually i didn't say everything. The motrin helped my back a little but all it was really for was when I got my Wisdom teeth removed. The pain killer really helped that. Pain killers dull the pain. They don't kill it. So really you still could take them. One motrin isn't going to make you numb you just won't feel all the aches.

I don't were a back brace. I find that it just gets in the way. I just kind of deal with the pain. There is some lower back exercises that you can do to strenghten your back, that should help.

Whatever you do, don't lean back when you have your tenors on. I had a habit of doing that when i first started playing and I had alot a lot of unneccessary back pain. To strenghten my back when i first joined the drumline, i would take one of our older sets of tenors and wear them for about ten minutes. After awhile, i would increase my time until i could wear them for over an hour and not hurt that much.

I never had back problems, just me and this other guy would get really baddly rubbed hips, and then a few times myleg would go numbw hiole marching, any ideas on this?

Yeah, I have actually used a backbrace, and my highschool only uses the small Pearl championship set. I remember last year at band camp, my back was hurting so bad that my whole legs started to shake extremely bad. So I took my dads old back brace, but it was still missing the metal support beams that slip into it like the plastic things on kids shin gaurds for soccer. But anyway, I used the brace, and I think it helped some. But by the time the next year came, I started forgetting it. And I realized I had totally built an immunity to it. Now my back is getting stronger, and that is the way to go. But as far as heaviest drums go, you are all wrong! The heaviest ones I had to deal with were the large set of Premiers at the 'Scades tryout. Anyway, get a brace if you think it helps, but building that muscle is the way to go in my opinion. Peace

Yeah, this is only my first year of playing quads. When I first started playing my back would kill me after practice, and on comps we would have the drums on even longer. I couldn't just take of my drums when we weren't playing. Plus we wear out harnesses under our jackets. We practice 4 days a week, so after a while I just got use to it. I don't really have back pain anymore.

I agree with the idea of using stands whenever possible. I currently do not use stands with my drumlines but I have given the challenge if they win high drums at one or more contests for two years in a row I will push the head bd's for stands. If they can prove to me they can play and march, then they can learn there music with stands. This seems to have keep some of the younger drummers in a mind set more apt to accept constructive criticism from myself, other guest percussion instructors and even from each other.

- Edited for double-posting. You have up to six hours to edit your posts. -

I marched tenors from 89-96(full fledged tenor jock), then hurt my back. Chiropractor wanted me to marry him (not really, just wanted me to come to his office four times a week for a month or two), and the orthopedic doctors ordered physical therapy for about the same. I pulled pit duty for the fall of 96 (converted to full fledged snare jock), and then marched snare from 97-01.

I don't remember pain before that. If it was there I nevered bothered to think about it. I was having too much fun playing. But in retrospect, I probably should have paid attention to the pain and taken the proper precautions, ie. a brace or something. Maybe I wouldn't have the old man back at 28. Think about it...

On page 3, someone said you can get scoliosis from wearing back braces and you can get osteoporosis from not wearing it... geez, that scares me.

Next year, I'll be playing quads (and already started practicing it) and I'm having problems with the weight.
Will taking a lot of calcium and working out my back prevent me from getting these disease?

I had a bad back before i even came into the battery. So in the beggining, being a girl and carrying a bass4 kinda sucked. But during sets when everyone else (GUYS!!) took their drums off, i kept mine on.So i was the only girl, and the only one standing.SAme with indoor im on tenors, and we have Pearl Championships also, its a pretty heavy set. But i feel more comfortable now with a drum on than off, FINALLY! so keep it on itll build your back up.

Don't cheat when your wearing the drums...

Most people try to lean back and wat not to put the weight of the drums somewhere else...

It's gonna hurt, cause you don't really work out your lower back in your normal everyday life...

Just know it's gonna hurt, but by season time, you'll feel weird when it's not on you...

just hang in there