• Strengthening your fret hand can improve your guitar playing.guitar detail 2 image by Scott McCarty from Fotolia.com
  
  For anyone who plays the guitar, whether they're starting out or haven't played for a while, it doesn't take long to realize the fretting hand can get sore and tired quickly. The fretting hand forms the chords on the neck of the guitar, and if it tires will cause various problems, including improperly pressing down on the strings. That leads to things like a buzzing sound, chords that sound off or chords that sound dead. There are exercises to make your hand stronger and help prevent these problems.
  
  

Play Songs

• Probably the best way for you to strengthen your fret hand is to just play songs. Many popular songs are about three to four minutes long, so that gives you a short period of intense activity. You can take a break to rest your hand before moving on to the next song. You can find guitar tabs (a form of musical notation that shows you where to place your fingers when playing a song) on many Internet sites. To help keep you motivated to play, pull the tabs of songs that you like, but try to vary the chord structures in the song. Play songs that have bar chords, which are chords in which your index finger is placed across the entire fret and presses down all six strings while your other fingers form the chord. This is difficult when you first try to do it, but it will help strengthen your hand, while allowing you to play more songs. Open chords are similar to bar chords, without your index finger across the fret. If you're into rock music, you could also play power chords. They are similar to bar chords, but you'll use your index finger and ring finger together to make a bar across the strings.
  
  

Finger Exercises

• Finger exercises on the fretboard also can strengthen your fret hand and serve as a warm-up period before you play. Finger exercises involve moving your fingers up and down the fretboard while you pick individual strings on the guitar. You can find exercises like these in instructional books, as well as online. See the links in Resources for some examples of sites that have these exercises.
  
  

Strength Training

• Another thing you can do to improve the strength in your fret hand is to do non-guitar exercises. You can use hand exercisers, which consist of a device that fits in the palm of your hand and allows you to press down on a button with each individual finger. Squeezing tennis balls or racquetballs and rolling them around in your hand can help improve your wrist strength. Using small weights (no more than 5 lbs.) to do exercises such as wrist curls can also help strengthen your wrist.