Ky Brabson
Ky Brabson
United States
I work as a lighting technician in the film industry. I'm here because I want to do drawings, but the good kind. The competent kind. 😋
TeResA Bolen
Been trying to incorporate Marshall’s advice from the most recently release Draftsmen podcast since last week, about stretching and strengthening muscles in opposition, making up my own stretches. Found this online today from Doctor Jo, and they feel quite helpful. Her YouTube info says she is a physical therapist, and doctor of physical therapy. Hopefully it will help bring some relief for any of you who are suffering. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DEf5AGef4yI
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Ky Brabson
Hi, Teresa! I'm currently going through physical therapy for, pretty much, my whole body. That is, from my feet to the muscles in my neck. And as long as you aren't suffering from a disease or have joint/muscle damage that can only be fixed with surgery, you are on the right track. Obviously, going to a doctor and getting a professional observation is the safest course, but let's run forward assuming that you're healthy and your ailment can be rectified through targeted exercise. But first, I'd like to bring up another point Marshall made in the podcast. When things start to hurt, people avoid doing what makes them hurt. That's just the human thing. When one walks up the stairs and gets knee pain, what's the universal reaction? Avoiding the stairs. But, really, that just lets the injuries get worse. According to the professional I'm seeing, who has a Doctor of Physical Therapy, being active is the only hope you have. I took the Doctor Jo route before seeing a professional. And it didn't help me. The reason it didn't help me, was because I was recruiting the wrong muscles. For instance, when I tried to exercise my glutes, I would use my hamstrings. Doctor Jo actually has a video about this called, Dead Butt Syndrome. I didn't know I had this though, it took a professional to point it out and get me to recruit the muscles properly. If you can save up for physical therapy, or you have health insurance that will cover it, that's the way to go for any kind of recurring pains that have to deal with muscles. But, let's say you want to tackle this all by yourself. The most important tip that I got out of my therapist is Stability. Let's delve into wrist pain. It's going to be a common point of injury for artists. My wrists, along with all of the other joints in my body, are weak. The good part about that is the fact that they can be strengthened. So I have a wrist injury. If I feel the muscles of my forearm I can feel where the muscles are tight and uncomfortable. If I feel the muscles on my "good" forearm, I'll notice that they are smooth and much looser. So, what's happening? The muscles in my forearm are working overtime to keep my wrist stable. My bones moved too much and my brain didn't like that, so now my forearm is eternally cramped. To remedy this, my physical therapist has me wearing wrist supports when I do exercises, i.e., pushups, pullups and band work. And then as a separate set of exercises, I do grip strengthening. This includes focusing on wrist extensor, wrist flexor and general gripping exercises. Slowly but surely, I am strengthening the weak, opposing muscles in my forearm and my wrist is feeling better. I also have a rounded shoulder. It's common for rounding to happen to both shoulders, but my bodies been fairly twisted since birth. So the side of injury rotates as you go down my body. Anyway, my neck hurts. Why? Because a lot of the muscles attached to the neck are also attached to the shoulder. My shoulder lacks stability. So all of the muscles around it are misused in order to compensate and get back that stability. Unrounding my right shoulder has released the tension in my neck. To sum all of that up for an artist: I'm guessing the most common art-injuries are going to be wrist pain, shoulder pain and pain from forward head posture. The forward head posture is a side effect of looking down at a desk (or phone) for too long and your body adjusting to that position. So for wrist stability, you're looking for grip training. There are plenty of videos on youtube. The important part here is to focus on stability. Doctor Jo, is great but when I look at her wrist videos they "don't dig too deep" into strengthening opposing muscles. They focus on stretching. If stretching fixes your problem, great! You win! But if the pain comes back the next day, it's because your brain is still trying to provide joint stability. Stretching tight muscles and using a lacrosse/tennis ball for self myofascial release can help greatly here. But the most important part is beefing up the muscles that aren't doing their job. For shoulder pain, I would start with shoulder-impingement exercises and rotator-cuff exercises. As well has lower, trapezius exercises. If the pain gets worse when you do it, keep going- no, wait. What I meant was, "Stop. Stop and figure out something else." Here's a tricky part to my recommendation. I've tried all of these for my shoulder (my left shoulder, not the rounded one I just mentioned fixing) and I've only gotten mild relief. That's the next body part I'm tackling with my physical therapist this week. What I'm expecting to find is going to be similar to my glute problem. My guess is that I was doing the correct exercises with good form, but something that I couldn't diagnose myself is holding me back. Perhaps one of the rotator cuff muscles wasn't being used properly just like my glutes weren't being used properly. Come on, will I hurry up already. This message is going on forever :P Also, here's this: https://www.amazon.com/TENS-7000-Digital-Unit-Accessories/dp/B00NCRE4GO/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=tens+unit&qid=1593550586&sr=8-6 Immediate pain relief from a Tens Unit. It doesn't solve the problem though. Just let's you ignore it.
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Ky Brabson
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Ky Brabson
I thought it could be helpful to record my first experience using the website, specifically, my first attempt to post. First off, I love the way the site is organized . Seeing the "0 posts," made me think I should post. I think that was a great choice to motivate community interaction. Nobody wants to see a, " zero progress has been made," reminder 🤣 But then I tried to click on, "Posts." It's not a useful hyperlink at the beginning, just more info about my lack of posts. But nowhere to post. I clicked on Courses, Tools and Album. Still unable to catch an obvious place to post. Finally, I navigated the collapsible menu for the site. I clicked the Community link. Boom, I found it. Now that I know that 'Community' means 'Forum', I've had no issue navigating the site. Again, this is all about the first attempt of using the site. Now that I've done it correctly I'll be able to do it passively, FOREVER. In that first attempt, however, I just trialed and error'ed down the list of hyperlinks. I think another "box" on the Dashboard containing a popular or recent post from the Community page would circumvent that first time search. It would also serve as a 'homepage reminder' as to what the Proko Community is up to. - Ky
Ky Brabson
I made myself a floor desk because standing and sitting desks are lame. Except yours. Yours is good 😋 And then I throw the cheap, Hobby Lobby drafting table on top when I want to draw. Having the computer on a monitor arm allows me to bring the reference images pretty high over the desk.
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Ky Brabson
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Ky Brabson
added a new topic
Daily sketch
4yr
Hand Practice
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