I have a bad habit of cracking my knuckles and i was just wondering, will this be detrimental when it comes to playing bass in the long term, cus ill stop if it is

Seriously. Stop. Now.


Cracking. Knuckles. Is. [explicit]. Bad.

I had a friend who cracked his knuckles

Two, actually

Both musicians

Both had arthritis by 19.

Its horrible. Stop. Now.

Do warm ups.

Warm ups, That reminds me of a question I must ask Dman!

To PM! *flies*

Oh my gosh i do it every friggin day

Go to a doctor and ask them. My neck cracks all the time I visited my GP and they told me it was just "a physical anomaly" and that it was nothing to worry about. However I wouldn't recommend putting any undue pressure on your joints as it's usually just asking for trouble

Thats usually a different thing I think, my neck and hip cracks, but its different then forcing your knuckles to crack..

I'd recommend these to anyone:

http://www.powerballs.com/

Basically, they exercise all the muscles in your wrist & fingers and are great at helping to prevent cramps etc. in your hands from playing bass. I don't use mine enough to be honest, but when I have used it it's helped a lot. I play PC games constantly, play bass, type loads, so was getting aches in my wrists. Not any more It can also exercise all the muscles in your arm etc., but I haven't looked into it that much. Mine cost what, £15ish? You can get them cheaper, but I wouldn't recommend going for one of the dodgy no-name brands etc. - those things are the real deal

For hand strength i use....um these hand grip thingies ah here they are \/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/York-Fitness-Handgrips/dp/B000ZG5DHY

Theyre pretty useful, thanks for the knuckle cracking advice btw ill cut it out pronto = )

(kinda hate to bumb this, but i wanna try and clear this up)
I have allways had to crack my knuckles as long as i can remember, mainly because they always got stiff, and would crack themself if i didn't. After a while of my parents telling me to stop... with the same thought as most of you, i told them that it just happened, in the end they brought me to my family doctor and he said it was just the seperation in my bones, it cause it to naturaly happen and that the idea of getting arthritis by cracking them, was a myth.
Their has only been one study that has proven anything, and here's the results.
-Cracking them is only moving the joint out of their natural postion, and releaseing the pressure on the synovial fluid. This create and pocket of gas that pops making the cracking sound you hear.
-This has no effect on arthritis, you have 27 bones in you hand, so it's the most comon kind of arthritis people get, seeing as we use our hands to do almost everything.
-This does however have a minor impact on your grip strenght(in a bad way)
-This can also elongate the joints.(usually unnoticeable)

What you said happeneds to your neck and hip Drakon, happens to my hands, again, its just the seperation between the bones.

Yea, I think Black is right.

I've cracked my hand and knuckles since I was god knows how old. I do it all the time.

I was paranoid about the future. Everyone told me i'd have arthritis by the time I was 25. I was really worried about it!

33 now, and still nothing. Did a bit of research about it, and it pretty much echoed what black said. Asked my doctor, and the same. I then educated myself about tendons, bones etc (after I got R.S.I).

I still would try and avoid doing it, though.

On the subject of hand health, my hand and wrist are acting up Well not really acting up, just sometimes hurting a little and tingly feeling... I have a weird tingling feeling in my hand right now. I picked up my bass for the first time yesterday after a week and a half after I seemed to have screwed up my hand/wrist by playing too much. My hand/wrist were fine yesterday but now its all weird again

make sure you're doing enough hand and tendon stretches dude, i'm sure you'll be able to ease your way back into it in a day or two ;o