An Overlooked Physical Risk in Long Guitar Practice

This post is not about technique, tone, or teaching. It is about a physical risk associated with long, uninterrupted guitar practice that many players may not have considered at all.

I have played guitar for decades. Like many serious players, I practised for extended periods, often four to five hours at a time. I play primarily in classical position. With heavier (and many electric) guitars, this places sustained pressure on the inner thigh, very close to major blood vessels.

During an intense period of practice in 2022, I noticed a bruise on my inner left thigh, exactly where the guitar rested. There was no pain, no obvious injury, no immediate consequence. I did not think much of it. Over time, I forgot about it entirely.

Shortly afterward, I suffered two strokes. I unplugged, put my guitar in its case, stood up and slow-motion collapsed, shivering, vomiting, dizzy, confused. The second stroke occurred later, in hospital, and that’s when a lot of the lasting cognitive and sensory damage occurred.

The strokes occurred before I began doctoral study, during a break between degrees. In the immediate aftermath, I spent a month teaching myself how to read again. I knew what words meant. My intellect was intact. What was damaged was the visual decoding layer. I could not reliably recognise written language on the page. The injury sat squarely between perception and meaning.

Extensive medical investigation at the time, and later, could not identify a clear cause for the stroke(s). I was younger than the typical stroke demographic and had no obvious risk factors that explained what had happened.

Only much later, after returning to longer guitar practise sessions with a different instrument, did I unexpectedly remember the bruise. With distance and hindsight, the pattern became difficult to ignore.

I am now fairly sure that I repeatedly compressed or obstructed a major vein or artery in my leg through sustained pressure from a heavy guitar in classical position. Prolonged vascular compression is a well-documented medical risk in other contexts. It is simply not discussed in relation to guitar playing.

If that assessment is correct, the implication is blunt:

my guitar almost killed me. Twice.

This is not written for drama. It is written because this risk appears to be unrecognised, unspoken, and therefore unmanaged.

When I have tried to explain this to others, the reaction is usually confusion, disbelief, and even mockery. But the mechanics are not exotic, the circulatory logic is not difficult to understand. Long, unbroken pressure on major blood vessels can have catastrophic consequences. Guitarists, especially those practising seriously, often sit still for hours, deeply focused, ignoring bodily signals that would be obvious in other activities.

I am now comprehensively cognitively impaired, but not intellectually. My reasoning and understanding remain intact. My access to them is damaged. Music and guitar playing have been central to recovery, which adds an unavoidable irony to the situation.

This is not an argument against classical position, long practice sessions, or serious musicianship. It is a call for awareness.

If you notice unexplained bruising, numbness, tingling, or discomfort where your instrument rests, especially during long sessions, do not ignore it. Change position. Add padding. Take breaks. Treat circulation as part of technique, not an afterthought.

That small bruise was a warning I did not understand.

Others may not get a second chance.