5 things you can do, when you cannot play guitar

I was out running on Saturday and, in a moment when unconscious competence turned into unconscious incompetence, I tripped and fell on a gravel road. My picking hand is skinned, my left forearm gashed, and two fingers on my fretting hand are sliced to the bone. It looks like it'll be a while until I am going to be playing again, so I was thinking "How can I practice guitar without playing guitar?"

So I did some research and here's my top 5.

1. Don't. Take a break.

Sometimes we get wrapped up in the goals and plans we set for ourselves and any disruption causes stress and pressure. This is not constructive.

In 1953, Roger Bannister was attempting to break the 4-minute mile. Training was tough and as the date for the attempt approached, his performance had plateaued and he was suffering from a cold. His coaches response was to send him climbing for a break. Not altitude training like modern athletes, but a climbing holiday - a complete break. It did the trick. When the date of the attempt came at Cowley Road Athletics stadium in Oxford, Bannister was able to find a final burst of energy in the last lap that enabled him to collapse over the line in 3 minutes 59.xx seconds. 

It wasn't that the climbing had made him stronger, it had given him a mental break and time to re-group. So take a break, do something different, dial down the obsession.

2. Study some theory.

Brush up on some of the things you haven't used in a while or learn something new.