Leg Fatigue?

Taylor96

Junior Member
I have recently switched to playing heels up, but I am having problems with my leg getting tired. It is mainly a problem when playing constant quarter notes and my leg doesn't have time to rest. I have the springs on my pedal at mid tension, when I sit on my throne my leg is slightly angled down toward the bass drum, my beater angle is about 45 degrees, when I sit my knee is directly above my heel, and I rest my heel on the floor when I can between beats. Does anyone have an idea of what I might be doing wrong? My apologies if this has been discussed before.
 
When you play heel up, rest your feet at the base of the footboard between strokes, you need to release your calves muscles, even for milliseconds, you'll feel more relaxed once your used to do it.

Also you don't need to raise your heel very high, not more than an inch or so and use the rebound of the pedal to get the power/speed, it should be smooth and relax at all times.

Try not to bury the beater into the batter head either, let it rebound and work with the momentum of the pedal, adjust your setting accordingly to get the best out of your pedal.
 
I don't think my heel ever touches the heel plate. You just need to get used to balancing on the pedals and throne in a new way, it doesn't require any energy, just some sort of posture change that will come about naturally.
 
I've mentioned this in a previous Thread.

If you're playing Heel Up, try to not sink the beater into head... A lot of drummers prefer to do this because of the tonality, which is fine, but if you're pressing your weight into the head through the pedal, your leg is going to get tired... Imagine walking round on your tip toes all day, it is kind of a similar effect.

I play heel up, but combine this with heel down in order to allow the beater to come back off the head. Now I don't ALWAYS do this, but generally it stopped my leg from wearing out all the time. It also makes a fat sound, because your not killing the velocity of the strike from vibrating all of the skin and sending that through the shell to resonate.

Finally, if you smack the crap out of your bass drum stop it... It does have a nice sound, but sometimes this can lead to some form of damage in your legs. Play the bass drum at a normal level. If you need to hear the 'punch' put a mic in the bass drum and get some monitors for practice. Alternatively get the engineer to turn up the bass drum at the gig. It will help you not have to hit the skin so hard.
 
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