Increasing Stamina

Increasing your stamina can help you:

• play longer! (of course)
• sound good longer (as you fatigue, your technique will suffer)
• play stronger notes
• play faster

Warm up for a few minutes - I suggest a simple straight roll exercise (more details here).

1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . . -->
T . . . K . . . T . . . K . . . -->
T . K . T . K . T . K . T . K . -->
T K T K T K T K T K T K T K T K -->
TKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTK-->
T K T K T K T K T K T K T K T K -->
T . K . T . K . T . K . T . K . -->

Stretch your fingers, hands, wrists, arms, and shoulders gently.

Beginning at a moderate tempo, play a straight roll and gradually increase the tempo until you start to feel a little uncomfortable and your sound starts to suffer.

Jot down a note about the time, and turn on your metronome or drum machine to about that tempo you were just playing, then decrease the tempo by 5 bmp, and play the straight roll again.

TKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTK-->
 

Although this exercise can help you improve your timing, the role of the metronome in this exercise is to help you maintain a playing speed that will work your endurance.

During this exercise, it's important to maintain good form and technique, because when you practice with good technique, you reinforce good technique, and you work the muscles that need working.

As you play, keep checking on the tension levels and breathing. Although your natural reaction to fatigue may be to tense up and hold your breath, this will only tire you faster and interfere with your technique. If you notice your breath gets shallow, relax and breathe deeper. If you notice your forearms tense, relax them.

Keep checking on your technique, too, so you're always practicing good form. Try to make the left and right strokes sound equally loud, if you can.

You will feel the muscles getting warm? Keep going. When you just can't maintain the tempo with decent technique, stop. 

Make a note about your tempo (maybe on a sticky note on your metronome or computer), and the time - how many minutes did you go?

Again, stretch gently.

Repeat this practice daily, or every other day at minimum. You should begin to see a gradual increase in both your tempo and the duration of time you can play nonstop.

Happy practicing!