An exercise program in the form of home exercise videos will be given to the participants in this group. They will be asked to perform a minimum of two 35-minute exercise sessions per week, over a period of 11 weeks. They will also be required to attend three group exercise sessions, to confirm correct execution of the exercises. A short educational presentation on injury prevention will be offered at the beginning of the study, followed by three informative e-mails over the course of the study.

Participants in this group will be asked to continue their usual activities.

The exercise program comprises warm-ups, exercises and cool-downs and aims to improve recruitment, strength and endurance of postural muscle groups that are key to the work of a musician. Basic activation exercises progress to dynamic and resisted exercises as well as functional musical movements. There is a series of six exercises of increasing difficulty for each of the following bodily regions: hips, back, neck, shoulders and abdominals.

Topics to be discussed in the educational presentation and e-mails include healthy practice habits, activity dosage, the importance of physical activity, how the body adapts to workload and physical stressors, and instructions pertaining to the exercise program.

A biopsychosocial self-report questionnaire used to obtain demographic and occupational information and to document the intensity and impact of performance-related musculoskeletal pain/problems

Self-report questionnaire on pain/symptom prevalence in the different regions of the body

Questionnaire designed to quantify participants' perceived improvement or deterioration over the course of the study