The Vocal Athlete

Professional musicians do whatever is necessary to acquire the very best instruments they can find and then maintain them in flawless working condition. String players will go to legendary lengths to get their hands on a Stradivarius or Guarneri. Wind players can devote hours every week to finding or making the perfect reed. If a pad comes loose or a spring breaks, it gets fixed immediately. 

Singers are born with the only instrument they will ever own. It is therefore even more important for you to optimize and maintain your instruments as well as you possibly can. 

I became a personal trainer for two years to try to learn how to accomplish this. I had long been frustrated seeing students with extraordinary talent, passion and commitment fail to meet their potential because of poor alignment, coordination, stamina and overall fitness. The gym turned out to be an incredible laboratory where I absorbed an enormous range of useful information about everything from functional anatomy to motor learning. I summed up what I learned in Sports-Specific Training for the Vocal Athlete, which appeared in Classical Singer Magazine in 2005.

I wanted to design a regimen that would transform every one of you into an Ultimate Singing Machine – a friend once laughed at my obsession and accused me of trying to build Frankensinger! – but eventually I had to admit that each singer's relationship to their body is so unique that I could never create a one-size-fits-all routine.

The responsibility rests with each of you to determine how to establish and maintain optimal condition for your instruments. You need to seek out ways to assess your own strengths and weaknesses, because in all likelihood no one else is going to point this out to you in a useful or compassionate way. 

While there is very little awareness or support for this in most conservatory programs, the good news is that the resources are out there if you know where to look. For any physical issues or limitations that get in the way of singing your best, there are state-of-the-art trainers, physical therapists, facilities, techniques, nutritionists, and even sports psychologists – you name it – that can help you address them. 

As Jeannette LoVetri pointed out in a recent blog post, singers don't have the same access to these resources as athletes specializing in other sports. But you must either seek them out or settle for performing with a substandard instrument. If you look at it that way, the choice is pretty clear.

I am not suggesting that this is an easy thing to do. An oboe player doesn't take it personally when she realizes that a pad needs replacing. Your relationship to your body image is far more complex. 

I think this is the reason that when I wrote my article, it kind of landed with a thud on the singing community. Those who reacted with enthusiasm were the ones already working out regularly; the rest just weren't ready to think about it. But in the years since then I have seen a massive surge in awareness and enthusiasm for fitness. Mezzo-soprano Robin Flynn's blog, The Athletic Performer, is a great source of inspiration, as is the facebook group she created with the same name. Courageous professional singers are blogging about weight management to encourage mutual support and solidarity. There is an ever-increasing level of expertise and insight in the posts on the Health and Fitness Forum on the New Forum for Classical Singers. 

While there is much that you can and must do on your own, I still want vocal training programs to get serious about helping singers improve and take care of their instruments. I find it maddening that many of our great state universities are home to both top-shelf vocal programs and Division I athletic teams whose amazing resources are completely off limits to singers. 

For now, support one another as best you can. I would love to hear from readers whose health and fitness regimens have had an impact on their singing. 

What is your routine, and how has it evolved over the years? 

What advice can you share with the rest of us?

Comments

[Frances]

I am so with you on this. I believe that the things I do to improve my awareness of my body and other fitness pursuits, such as posture, strength, flexibility etc.. are part of my training myself as a whole singer, and I make these other physical pursuits part of that training.

Having come to this conclusion for my own life, however, one puzzle that remains has been that in reading advice from some of the greatest voices in the greatest singers of all time I will read that many of them did not pursue any particular fitness regimen. In fact, I seem to recall reading one of them saying that all he/she did for any kind of exercise was brisk walking. So, although I make the choice to improve my fitness to benefit my singing, and I can definitely feel the difference it makes, I can understand that some people might not choose that path and still get good results with their voices

But brisk walking is a great exercise, so ...

[Claudia Friedlander]

Each of us is unique. Certainly there are lucky singers who have achieved great things without a robust exercise regimen. But perhaps they could have achieved even more or had longer careers had they attended to their bodies more carefully.

My concern is that those of us who are less naturally fit and functional not allow treatable physical limitations to keep us from realizing our potential.

Thanks for the post, Frances!

[Monster Soprano]

Good evening,

I totally agree. As I rediscover my voice in this postpartum period of my life and also continue on my quest to losing weight, I can REALLY tell the days where I exercised and the days I did not. When I exercise, the body is already full of healthy oxygen and my vocal warm ups are short and I can get into the fine tuning of my intrument quickly. Now, don't ask me about the days where Bambina woke up twice and has been crying non-stop...those days, I just don't practice, because I know my body and a bad practice day means 10 days of unlearning. Great post!

[Claudia Friedlander]

Wow - you really are experiencing a very specific distinction between the way you sing when your whole body is warmed up and the ones when it isn't!

Is there a relationship between what you do in the gym and what you do in the studio? This is exactly the kind of distinction I would like everyone to intvestigate.

Readers who hang out on the New Forum for Classical Singers may already be familiar with Monster Soprano's fitness and weight-management journey. You can learn more by visiting her blog, http://monstersopranoweightlossjourney.blogspot.com/.

[Sybariticsinger.wordpress.com]

Claudia,
Great post. I started to really enjoy running in undergrad and it began to pay off in my singing. I remember a voice teacher asking me, "What have you been doing - your breath control is so much better!" I've been training recently for the Baltimore Half Marathon - I'll post some updates on my own blog www.sybariticsinger.wordpress.com as I go along. Thanks again for some inspiration!

[Claudia Friedlander]

It's awesome that your voice teacher noticed the impact your running had on your breath - such an affirmation. Have a great experience with your upcoming marathon, and thanks for sharing your blog URL so we can root for you!

[Invisible Oranges]

I am not a singer, though I am a musician (guitarist). I find that fitness completely crosses over with musicianship in that it instills discipline and makes one aware of one's breathing - which of course would be crucial to singing.