Some final thoughts on the new “workout” pad phenomenon.

 For the last six to eight months, I’ve had some fun obtaining and trying out all sorts of different pads advertised as being specifically for “working out” or “warmups.” Here’s a list of what I’ve cycled through:

— Reflexx (pre-Zildjian)

— Revolution 

— Drumeo Quiet Pad (1st generation)

— Prologix Red, Blue and Black

— Moongel (early edition, borrowed briefly from a friend)

I didn’t have the Moongel for more than a week, not long enough for me to really live with it and decide if I wanted one for myself. In hindsight, probably not.

This has given me a fairly wide range of surfaces to try out, and also some time to consider the whole idea of “working out” on  a playing surface.

Before the advent of so-called “workout” pads, drummers warmed up on any old practice pad, or on an actual drum. 

So who decided that the world needed pads specifically for “warming up” or “working out” as if weightlifting were part of the drummer’s training?

That’s not a completely rhetorical question. Specificity in practice pads became big — and big money — when pad makers realized there was, as marching drums got higher and tighter, a growing market for marching-specific pads. So finding another specific market isn’t such a far-fetched phenomenon.

It may be, however, an unfortunate one.

In the years before pads got SO specialized, all drummers learned how to play roughly the same way. Learn and master the twenty-six original rudiments; learn how to read music; and then apply the techniques learned to playing in dance bands, drum corps, school marching bands and classical orchestras. With only minor differences in technique, a drummer could transfer his or her skills from one kind of music to another without too much fuss. Good drummers before the rise of specialization were those who could play and read in nearly every style, and they were the ones who found steady work in opera and vaudeville houses, musical theatre pit orchestras, jazz combos and military outfits.

When drum corps and marching bands began to change, to “modernize,” in the late 1970s, most drummers still had to know how to do everything well. As drum technology evolved, as drums got higher-pitched and higher-tensioned, it soon became clear that differences in playing style and technique were necessary, since Kevlar and carbon marching drum heads required a different approach than looser Mylar heads still used in jazz and symphonic work.

And so the practice surfaces for each diverged more and more, until by the early 2000s there were pads for “general” use and pads for “marching” use. Over time, the young people involved in the marching arts were relatively easy to channel into a new market for pad makers, and specialty pads for marching drummers became, as the kids say, A Thing.

And that’s how we got to where we are now.

Some of the marching-specific pads are quite good, in as much as they promote and encourage the kind of technique required in today’s drum lines. Are modern marching drums and pads, and the technique required to play them, healthy for still-growing hands and arms? I’m not medically qualified to answer that question with any authority. What I DO know is that many older drummers (those marching before the advent of high-tension drums) who grew up marching with lower-tensioned drums often find it very hard — and sometimes painful — to make the transition to Kevlar and carbon heads. 

That’s something worth thinking about.

Back to “workout” pads.

Why do I need to “work out” when it comes to drumming? I play drums nearly every single day, and usually warm up with a page from “StickControl” (still the best drum book that no one ever loved), followed by some Rudimental exercises or short pieces at different tempi. By then, my hands are ready to tackle whatever it is I want to look at that day, whether behind the drum kit or with a marching snare drum. (*note: I play marching drums with lower-tensioned Mylar heads exclusively, and will never play a Kevlar-headed drum again. My hands are too old, arthritic and accustomed to lower tension.)

So after several months of trying out these different “workout” pads, I came to the realization that in the end, I probably don’t need them. 

I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that, in the end, neither do most other drummers.

I’ll go even further and say that “workout” pads should NOT be given to young drummers whose hands are still growing.

Why? Because if they’re used improperly, or too often, or for too long, they can actually hurt your hands rather than help them. And while many of my readers came from a world where private teachers and one-on-one instruction were par for the course, there are many drummers who still don’t have access to that and who have to figure things out themselves.
Giving young, unschooled drummers  one of these “workout” pads and letting them pound away with little or no guidance is a mistake that could result in injury.

Something that is or feels like a real (non-Kevlar) drum is probably the best choice for drummers of any age and level of experience. 

So I have been letting go of those “workout” pads, one by one.

Today, I’m down to one “workout” pad, the Drumeo Quiet Pad,  and it’s the obverse surface of a pad that has a basic silicon rubber top side. I’ll probably hang onto it for awhile, as part of my pad collection.

The rest are gone. I won’t miss them. 

Today I broke out a rubber practice pad, warmed up on it, and then settled in for a short session working up another of the Wilcoxon solos. It felt fine. When I was done, my hands did not hurt from overwork.

Cheers and happy drumming.