UPPER leg muscle issue found. Double bassing.

[1 hit wonder]

Got a problem with my dominant leg. What upper leg muscles should I be working on, because right now it's all ankle or twitch technique and failing at low and mid tempo.

While learning double bass I discovered that my dominant leg is all ankle or twitch but NO upper leg (hip flexor or quad). If I try to play by raising and lowering my upper leg, it fails tempo.

My weak leg can sync all tempos by combo using upper leg with ankle assist. It plays beautifully and just needs work above180 bpm.

However, my dominant leg fails at very low tempos when I try to use the muscles of my upper leg, but especially badly at 100 to 160 while trying to use upper with ankle together. Its good above 170. On YouTube, I follow the 2 minute double bass workout. It's 2 minute exercises starting about 90 bpm. 30 seconds of one leg then 30 secs of the other. It increases tempo by 10 bpm increments up to about 200 or so. Just returning to drumming after 15 years out and decided to learn double bass.

So I want to isolate and work on the upper leg muscles to correct my lower tempos. Is it quad or hip flexor or what?

A problem I already addressed and fixed was this: before quitting 15 years ago I didn't even have to think to play The Immigrant Song, but couldn't lock in after returning. No kidding about the time it took, it took 20 hours of nothing but kicking that beat or doing Swing Town by Steve Miller to get it back on point. I kicked for up to 5 hours at a time to get it back.

 

[C. Dave Run]

It's just practice. Isolating 1 muscle group and weight training with it wont help your drumming. Drumming will.

I'm 30 years into double kick. I've been through ankle weights, isometrics, plyometrics, and weight training. None of it fixed any leg issues I might have been having. Drumming did. Not saying these things wont help with other aspects, but they dont fix sloppy.

Not being able to click with a certain tempo range with your feet is normal. All of us struggle with certain areas. The only difference is those who continue to work on it clean it up more than those that dont.

My personal area of suck is that speed that is too fast for legs but too slow for ankles. Sometimes my body just cant decide how it wants to do it.

 

[Al Strange]

It’s unusual that your dominant leg is struggling…maybe it’s not your dominant leg? I’m right handed and left footed. Like @C. Dave Run says, it’s practice, practice and practice! Keep smashing it!

 

[1 hit wonder]

It's really weird, I thought. It's probably more accurate to call it my more developed leg. I'm not a trained drummer and started in my mid 20s. Doing a single Quad, this leg always did a double then the weak adds a single on the slave pedal before the snare hit/cymbal crash. So the problem leg was trained differently.

C. Dave, yeah, that tempo is a major problem for my developed leg, too.
But what muscles are upper leg mid tempo and even low tempo? Quad? Hip flexor? Because if I don't know I cant focus on them while practicing. Outside developement/workout isn't what I'm doing.

It took over a month to find this weakness. I don't want to waste another month doing the wrong thing.

Drumming them for hours is how I'm doing it. I sit for a few hours at a time doing 1 thing. My dominant wants to flip doubles and quads/5s instead of doing a metered even spacing. I just want to sit there watching (primarily) that muscle and focusing on where it's weak.

 

[bud7h4]

While learning double bass I discovered that my dominant leg is all ankle or twitch but NO upper leg (hip flexor or quad). If I try to play by raising and lowering my upper leg, it fails tempo.

But what muscles are upper leg mid tempo and even low tempo? Quad? Hip flexor? Because if I don't know I cant focus on them while practicing. Outside development/workout isn't what I'm doing.

At slower tempos your upper leg muscles shouldn't be doing that much; it's the way your calf pushes off the pedal which simultaneously drives the beater forward and raises your knee. People sometimes think the upper legs and hip flexors are working because their leg is going up and down, but it's your calves (or it should be).

One main difference between fast and slow bass pedal playing is that the pedal is very much involved in fast playing, while the technique for playing slower can be practiced on the floor with no pedal.

I firmly believe double bass issues (whether fast or slow) have nothing to do with muscle strength and endurance and everything to do with proper technique and muscle memory. Make sure the technique you're practicing is good, then just keep at it.

 

[rebonn]

I have the same problem. Good singers transition from their regular voice into falsetto very well. It’s something that is obtained through continuous practice. Perhaps expecting results too soon is the only caveat. I know what I need to practice and I practice, but it’s obviously taking more time than I would like. To me, the transition area is not either or, it’s just a little less leg, a little more ankle, then a little lesser leg and more ankle up to all ankle. This transition is one of the toughest things I’ve had to deal with and will probably take the longest to nail down.

 

[bud7h4]

I have the same problem. Good singers transition from their regular voice into falsetto very well. It’s something that is obtained through continuous practice. Perhaps expecting results too soon is the only caveat. I know what I need to practice and I practice, but it’s obviously taking more time than I would like. To me, the transition area is not either or, it’s just a little less leg, a little more ankle, then a little lesser leg and more ankle up to all ankle. This transition is one of the toughest things I’ve had to deal with and will probably take the longest to nail down.

That was a major hurdle for me (and I'm sure most). There's a difficult awkward tempo where neither ankle or leg motion is comfortable. For me that was around 160 (16th notes).
The best thing I did to get over that hurdle was adjust my pedals so I could play about 10 BPM slower with ankle motion.
This way there's an overlap in the range of tempo where both ankle and leg motion work well; leg motion works up to about 165, and ankle motion works as slow as 150 or so. So there's a comfortable 15 BPM window rather than the dramatic "either/or" at 160 BPM.

 

[1 hit wonder]

I got interested in doing this from doing blues jams. When we're playing Freddie King's I'm Going Down, the bass players leave an opening if they don't ride 16ths (primarily the last verse/chorus). Practicing 16ths at home on kick showed me that my developed foot just does wide open, while my left can do all tempos under 180.

budh74, yes, it's that leg motion at lower tempo that my right leg, the developed leg, doesn't do well. The fact that the left has been mostly unused/undeveloped is probably why it responds properly to this training. I've watched the left leg, and the ankle and upper leg coordinate well for thrust and rebound off the pedal. All it needs is more ankle technique work for high tempo.
My springs are cranked to max, with heavier beaters and I moved the weights to the top for this. 180 is where my SLAVE pedal starts to drop off my foot on rebound. I need an upgrade from this old Iron Cobra.

As an aside, I'm older and old people lose muscle mass. Some of my school friends have pipe cleaner arms now. My leg muscle mass has dropped significantly, which may be why I struggled to get back timing on Immigrant Song.

Maybe quitting for 15 years isn't a problem when you're younger. I struggled, but do remember the story of Peart quitting for 4 or so years and feeling he wouldn't be able to recover to show level.

Anyway, I'm gigging regularly since January.

 

[1 hit wonder]

Well I've been kicking singles for over 3 hours now. After doing the 26 minute youtube workout twice I decided to find the metronome bpm I could consistently kick slow with my strong foot. 220 is it. The hole is from there to 340. It's good from 360 up to 400. The weak foot gets to 360 but only for 15 seconds. I'll worry about it later.

This is the 26 minute workout.
[Youtube]

My strong foot tempo problems are 130 to close to 170 using that video nomenclature instead of the metronome video I use.

Gonna add this: Right now I can get through most of it by doing 8 notes per foot then alternating. Until the end of 180 bpm.
I'm getting close to be able to double bass at the the upper ranges of that 2 minute work out.to clarify that, I'm doing the single bass 180 level and then adding the second foot form 360 bpm. I guess that's how we count it?

Gonna add again. Yes, I can get the double going at my weak foot's max tempo. There's a Tool double bass triplets I think(Schism?l, that I got going a couple times for close to Danny's duration. Finally feeling good about this exercise again.

 

[1 hit wonder]

Put a little time in tonight. Not 2 hours worth, but I'm starting to 'feel' my developed kick foot better at 110 to 130. 140 & 150 are still a mess. Around 6 or 8 notes in it wants to double. Also had some fatigue at 200 bpm tonight on the right/developed leg. The weak kick got a little while of doing 190 fairly well, but fatigued quickly.

I did the 26 minute video 3 times and tried to double kick the last 2 times. At 110 it gets pretty squirrelly, as do all the other tempos.

My sitting angle changes depending on which leg I'm single kicking at most tempos. My right/developed kick, I want to sit more upright and lean a little forward. My left/weak one I can be totally relaxed and slumped back. And it's just firing solid, dead-on tempo. Lol, when going for 180-190 on my weak leg and it starts fatiguing my right hand starts firing in sympathy like a dog's leg does when you scratch it's ribs.

 

[1 hit wonder]

Major fails from 130 to 160, which is 260 to 320 metronome. The right still sucks. Backing up to teach it the movement that my left is doing at 110.

The leaning forward when doing my right indicates I'm using upper leg too much instead of my foot and lower powering the upper leg upward.

I'm trying to train it by kicking in unison, both at the same time to match movement.

 

[SYMBOLIC DEATH]

When you use your number values what is the note value associated with the number? Quarters, eighth, sixteenth? I'm thinking your measuring it in quarter notes, because if your measuring it in 16ths you're in this territory:

And you don't need our help with speed.

 

[1 hit wonder]

Lol, I guess I'm doing eighths.
Well, I'm using the linked video above for guidance and time sigs. Then using youtube standard metronome for the higher count of similar timing.

 

[1 hit wonder]

An answer about upper leg usage is given here, below at 2 minutes in.

[Youtube]

Spencer Prewett of Archspire says within the clip that he uses hip flexor for double bass, adding that swivel and flat foot didn't fit him. So he scooted back and sits high to use almost all hip flexor.

Another discussion of the muscles commonly involved for tempos.
[Youtube]

 

[1 hit wonder]

Switched to a DW5000 double pedal for a while. It's easier to do 130 bpm 8th notes on my strong foot, but it fails 140, 150. It likes 190-200 bpm, but can almost slow to 160.

So I tried double kicking 160ish and can actually do it BUT all the muscles feel different. My shins work hard immediately. I feel my glutes working and some upper leg muscles too. Totally different than just kicking 1 foot, or doubling just using ankles.
It feels like a workout instead of technique.

 

[1 hit wonder]

While listening to music, I can now get to 150 bpm double bass. The video below is a little under that by swag and I can go the distance on it with my feet only, and beyond. I can't put the hands with it yet. Just feet.
Working at about 180 bpm my strong shin muscle gets really worked like it hasn't before. Lactic acid builds up beyond my left, undeveloped leg. Maybe I'm straining agin the pedal for stability. As it gets easier I'll be able to analyze that.

[Youtube]