muscle building

I've heard of a lot of people practicing with drum core sticks and practicing on pillows to build muscle. I do some of my regular rudimental workouts on a pillow or with fat sticks or both and when I go back to the drum pad with 5A's everything feels off or uncoordinated. If you practice too much on a pillow do you lose your sense of feel and bounce?

Well, if you ONLY practice on a pillow, then yes. I've gone that route on occasion, but I did it mostly to warm up for things and get the blood flowing - no more than 3-4 minutes on something that doesn't provide rebound, ya know?

Unless, of course, you play the pillows in a band.

Depends how and why you practice. Practicing on a pillow gives your extensors and related top side muscles a workout. The value in this is you maximize your ability to lift the sticks. This is stuff you'll never get from a snare drum doing diddles. Unfortunately, it's all too common that people will just bash on a pillow. This might give you big forearms if you work at it. Unfortunately, the muscle development you need is for stick control, not bone crushing.

As for stick lifting, try a folded towel on a hard surface; countertop is good. Start with the tips on the surface and practice backward stick control. Lift, lower, lift lower etc. Do all your drills in this manner; doubles, singles, diddles, whatever. No bashing.

Do this with your 5As as well as your field sticks. That should lessen the tactile gap. Remember the object is control.

Another thing pillows can help is finger control. Without the bounce, you can practice your finger rolls quite effectively. However it will be alot less controlled on a snare drum, so you can build the dexterity on the pillow, but also spend alot of time learning to control the finger roll on a snare. Once you get your finger rolls up to speed with your bounce rolls, they will sound much more articulated and controlled. I have a pair of Dom Famularo pad sticks that are huge and use the frequently to gain finger speed/control on non bouncy surfaces.

Does it make a difference if you do timed excercizes or sprint excercizes? Also how much time, soft surface Vs Snare, would be the best for practicing this?

Thanks for the good input.

Different types of drills would of course show benefits in different zones of your playing. The kinds of drills you do should be keyed to the requirements of your current level and your progress supervised by a qualified instructor. That said, go slowly. The good stuff doesn't happen unless you've crafted out all the stages.

if your looking to build muscles there are solid metal sticks you can buy. the only downside is A) you cant use them on a drum, only a practice pad B) they can get very expensive. i was at my drum lesson this past monday and my instructor pointed out the sticks. i tried out a 16 oz. stick.....holy crap. it really gives you a workout. so you can try those if you have the money. i also do not suggest you play on a pillow because you will loose your rhythm and feel of a real drum if u do it too much. get the HQ Double Sided Practice Pad if your looking for a good workout (http://hqpercussion.com/real_feel.htm). i use the pad and its great. one side for workout, one side for realistic feel. also i play marching snare in my school drum corps and the snare sticks do take more to work than regular sticks, but not all that much.