Warm-up exercises reduce music conservatoire students’ pain intensity when controlling for mood, sleep and physical activity: A pilot study

Introduction: Playing-related musculoskeletal pain is highly prevalent among classical music students, affecting them physically and psychologically. Unlike athletes or dancers, musicians' pain often goes untreated due to stigma and lack of specialised healthcare. While warm-up exercises are common practice in sports and dance, there is a lack of empirical research regarding physical warm-ups for musicians' pain. This study aimed to investigate the effects of a 2-week daily warm-up exercise intervention on conservatoire students' pain intensity, interference and psychological distress, at day 0 and after 2 weeks.Methods: Two groups were considered: an exercise (n = 9) and a waitlist control (n = 7) group. Data were collected using online Qualtrics surveys at three different stages.Results: 2 x 2 mixed ANOVAs indicated no significant effects on any of the outcome variables. However, when controlling for sleep, anxiety, depression and physical activity, the analyses revealed a significantly greater decrease in pain intensity in the exercise group compared to the control. In addition, bivariate correlations indicated that pain interference, anxiety and depression delta scores were significantly correlated for the exercise but not the control group. Anxiety and pain intensity delta scores were significantly correlated in both groups.Conclusions: These findings suggest that daily warm-up exercises have the potential to reduce musicians' pain intensity but only if certain variables are factored in. This pilot study highlights the multifactorial nature of musicians' pain and unveils the role that mood, sleep and physical activity level may have when assessing the efficacy of interventions based on warm-up exercises.