Hi, Aine, I showed this thread to my son Ryan who plays mandolin and can go at high speed on Irish traditional music... he said you should warm your hands up first. Put your hands in a sink of water that is as hot as you can stand. You won't cramp up as bad if you warm up like this and your muscles will be more loose for playing. Ryan took a mando workshop class from Radim Zenkel (you can find his website on the net) and Radim had lots of good mandolin advice regrading warm up and other techniques. Another Radim trick is to take a rubber glove that fits you tightly, cut the fingers of the glove off right where they reach the first knuckles of each finger of your hand. Use one glove because you can turn it inside out for each hand. Play for awhile to warm up with the glove on one hand then switch and play with the glove on the other hand.

Alice