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are you putting too much pressure on the frets? also hand positioning can make a difference. if you adopted an awkward position for holding a chord it can cause pain, i used to do barre chords in a weird way due to being self taught at the beginning, it was a while until I was corrected but it felt better straight away.
it is largely down to strength which comes in time along with your practice.
I would try to do big wide chords to strengthen up your fingers, it should make the simpler stuff feel easier and help you progress. just do silly things like elongate a chord as far across the fret board as possible or do barre chords with only your index and middle finger etc.
another thing to consider is the set up of your guitar, that can put pressure on your hands and cause aches if the action is all over the place or strings are too heavy
another thing I found helpful early on for finger positioning practice was using a multi effects pedal, as daft as it sounds.
I used to have trouble going cleanly to a C chord for instance. found by chance after getting a multi effects pedal for Christmas, I cycled through the usual d, c, e, g, chords on each setting, of which there were many, and by the time I got through them all i was moving to all chords quite happily, I think largely as I was distracted by the pedal and doing it repetitively for however long. it just didn't feel like practice. subsequently I got to grips with a few other wacky chords just cycling through like that, not paying too much attention and just doing it
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Dogtemple
almac68
putting in average 5 / 6 hours of guitar practice each week is adding strain on my fretting hand. i suppose if i was younger, tendons, joints etc would be more supple. After reading about a forum member suffering with sore hands after a couple of days manual labour in the DIY thread, methinks that i should invest time each day strengthening and stretching all fingers and thumbs, to avoid injury and develop a stronger reach. in fact some of the chords and barre chords i need to practice have four finger positions.
currently my practice involves alot of pentatonic patterns up and down the fret board, recently jacked up from 54bpm to 65bpm on the metronome as well as rapid finger picking routines, chromatic scales with fret width diminishing from nut to bridge
any advice on warming up, stretches, hand yoga.. greatly appreciated