• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

Slow hands

Treedot

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Dec 19, 2015
Messages
248
Location
Wisconsin
My hands suck. My mom has arthritis and trigger finger and this has affected me more and more as I get older, and I'm only 21 now. Since my hands are so slow, I main Jigglypuff and Peach, who I've found don't require a buttload of fast movements or a lot of tech skill in general.

But I want to main Fox. So badly. Do you guys have any recommendations about what I can do to train my hands to be faster so I can play fast characters without physically harming myself?
 

Chainz

Sleepy Chainz
Premium
Joined
Nov 21, 2014
Messages
9,496
Location
Las Vegas, NV
3DS FC
1075-1816-9029
It comes down to just playing him and building muscle memory. Your reaction speed will improve over time.

Hand stretches, and lotion are a few things I do/use when my hands feel stiff.

Here a vid you might wanna check out:

 

Diabolical PIe

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jun 1, 2014
Messages
93
Location
Milledgeville, GA
Okay, first of all, I'm not a doctor, and I don't know anything about the extremity of your hand conditions. I would suggest, before doing ANYTHING, going to your doctor and asking them about the potential stress that high input-per-second gaming might have on your hands and what they suggest, exactly. Don't ruin your body. That's dumb. It's a game. It's competitive, but competition should be fun, not physically scarring.

That being said, there are a lot of ways to speed up your fingers. The most important one is just playing the game. The more you repeat the motions of short hopping, l canceling, wavedashing, etc., the more efficiently you'll be able to execute those motions. Muscle memory is a powerful thing. From the perspective of a pianist, I've found that the best way to play quickly is to practice slowly. This may sound strange, but if you practice a technique as slow as possible, and gradually begin to speed it up, you'll have MUCH more control of precise tempo and technique than you would have by just mashing buttons as quickly as possible. Speed is all about comfort. Don't try to play in a way that makes you uncomfortable- you'll just sd off the side, lol.

Tldr; just be patient and play the game. It comes with time.

Also, if you have hand problems, I suggest thinking about button presses that minimize effort. For example, if I need to do a super fast Fair with Marth so I can get a double Fair in one short hop, rather than causing strain by trying to move my thumb from x to the c stick as fast as possible, I'll just short hop with tap jump and have my thumb already on the c stick, ready to go.

Try not to squeeze your controller to death. Think about gliding your fingers from one press to the next with as little effort as possible. This allows you to play longer and has an added bonus of extra precision.
 

Archelon

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jul 27, 2015
Messages
393
Location
Ontario, Canada
Run your hands under warm then hot water, then you like warmup stuff like opening and closing palm and moving fingers and rotating wrists, then do light stretches before and after you play, whenever you play. Hope these can help.
 

GenNyan

Smash Ace
Joined
May 12, 2015
Messages
574
Location
Florida
The warm water thing is sooooo important. Seriously, if your hands are cold, do not play until they're warmed. Trying to warm them by playing can cause some serious pain/future damage. Source: My right thumb.
 

Schill

Smash Rookie
Joined
Dec 18, 2015
Messages
21
I used to have really slow hands and I know that when you hear, "Just keep practicing and your hand speed will increase," you dismiss it and look for other solutions. Not to say that the other suggestions do not work but definitely listen when people tell you to just keep practicing.

I used to not even be able to short hop with fox at all. I could sit there and try 20 times in a row and every jump would be a full hop. I just went back to playing with slow hands with the occasional reach into more technically advanced skills and eventually my hands got a lot faster.

Breaks are very important too. Not sure if you grind everyday like I used to but if you do, take a break for a few days and you will be amazed how much better you are when you come back to it. It's true. There have been studies done that prove that when the human brain is learning a new skill, a few failed attempts followed by a recovery phase and at least a night's rest that skill is learned. Granted, it's not perfected by that time but once you get it, you can practice more easily.

Pick some kind of benchmark and work towards it such as fox's short hop or a frame perfect ledgedash. Hell you can even go down the list of easiest to hardest short hops to do and see your progress.

TL;DR
Don't give up but DO take a break and come back to it

Also since your situation may be a little unique I would check with your doctor as someone stated above.
 
Top Bottom