Reduce Pain from Detecting

If you looking for tips and advice to reduce pain experienced during detecting trips, read on. 

Here is some advice from Detectorists and Prospectors in Australia:

“It could be you need to shorten the shaft of your metal detector. I used to have shoulder pains for the first few months when I started detecting until I experimented with the angle of my arm. By shortening the shaft, my arm angle is more straight down. The coil swings closer to my feet. My arm felt more normal with no strain when I swung the coil.”

“I also started using the ‘arm strap’ religiously and that helped a lot with elbow pain. I used a ‘swingy thingy’ for a while and will still pull it out on a long hunt. It really makes the detector weightless but make sure you don’t let it affect your swing. It can cause a more emphatic pendulum swing if you don’t watch it. I really like the improved design of the ‘ultra swingy thingy’ and I think I will get one to use with my DFX when I get it out of layaway.“

“It could be you need to shorten the shaft of your metal detector. I used to have shoulder pains for the first few months when I started detecting until I experimented with the angle of my arm. By shortening the shaft, my arm angle is more straight down.”

“I basically just tried not using that arm for several months before it somehow fixed itself”.

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“Beach detecting is worst on the knees, moving the leg backwards to fill in holes. Limit your time to only 2 hours. “

“Treat it like any sports related injury. If you don’t give it a little time to heal, you are just re-injuring it. A six hour hunt is going to make you sore especially if you haven’t metal detected at all or in a while and could possible cause a muscle strain / sprain. Like any other sport, stretch before using the metal detector, especially if an area is known to give you problems, as well as conducting a few exercises beforehand, such as push ups or jumping jacks. Get blood flowing to that area. Ensure you take a small break in set increments and stretch out the area as needed. If you start to feel pain during a hunt, you should stop to prevent injury. Like anything else, you want to work up to long hunts. Like any athlete you don’t start out running a marathon, you have to work up to it. Once you’re feeling better start out with just a 30 minute to hour hunt, and see how you feel. If you’re not in pain, than keep doing that for a week or so, then work up your time.”

“I used Whites most of my 17 years and always had shoulder or elbow pain if i hunted too much…. which was often. Believe it or not what helped was switching to a HEAVIER machine. It made me improve my tech and swing slower. I’m almost 60 and can swing all day pain free. Fast lighter machine can make you over swing… much like a golf swing. GOOD luck.”

If you are looking for a metal detecting body harness, strap or bunji cord read our Harness article.