Fretting wrist positioning

I'll bet it's the position of the guitar that's causing the problem.

Your guitar is three dimensional, so you can change any or all of three axis - call 'em X, y, z, or pitch/roll/yaw or whatever you'd like - but they are:

1. The height of the peghead (how far 'up' you angle the neck)
2. The distance of the peghead from your fretting hand shoulder (how far 'out' you push the neck when you play), and
3. The face angle (the difference between the plane of the guitar face and vertical)

Get a mirror that will allow you to view your wrist from the side while you hold the guitar. Hold your powerchord, and start adjusting those angles. When you find a combination that lets you play with a relatively straight wrist, remember how you're holding the guitar, and try to hold it in that position every time.

No one position will work 'best' for all techniques, so the best overall technique is a compromise. I have my wrist dead straight ALMOST all the time I play. For certain really difficult passages, I might even change one of the angles (usually the peghead height) to get my technique for that part as perfect as possible.

Don't worry too much about how it looks. As you get comfortable with good technique, you'll find you go to it pretty naturally, and you'll be able to make some adjustments to improve the appearance. But IMO, the music comes first, the performance second - if you do it the other way 'round, you're taking the hard way.

Plus using my thumb to mute the E string when necessary. However, when in this position, it makes it almost impossible to stretch my pinky and play scales.

Yep, using your thumb like this is nothing short of disaster.
My wrist bends almost 90 degrees. I already found that this is not a good thing, it can cause carpal tunnel and all other kind of bad things. However, I can't find any way to have my wrist not bent, and still having full reach of all frets.

Your elbow, wrist and fingers should be on more or less a straight line. Having your wrist bent almost 90 degrees means you're having to reach a long way to fret even the closest notes.

Where is your fretting hand thumb? It should be roughly in the middle of the back of the neck.

As to the rest of your hand position problems, I'm with Noteboat. I think you need to go back to Step 1; practise with the headstock of your guitar level with the top of your head (what I call "Geek rock" position) and practise keeping your arm in a straight-ish line. Using the mirror is an excellent suggestion.

Hello again,

Thanks for the reactions! I've read them and have been experimenting with said things. I made some pictures to show the result of the positioning and my wrist.

First of all I'm a tall guy with pretty long arms/fingers. My guitar is an explorer shaped ESP (LTD ex-401). I used to have it rest on my right leg (I'm right handed, so the leg closest to the strumming hand, which basically will make the neck be close to my chest). With this position I just can't really seem to find a good way, except for moving the peghead up (if peghead means the thing with the tuners on it and such), so far that it's half vertical. Doesn't really work. Also the guitar tends to nosedive so playing live it'll be almost impossible to hold it like that, unfortunately.

However, if I move the guitar 1 bit to the left, basically using it like you would use a flying v, with the jack between your legs, instead of to the right like i usually have it, I seem to have found a way. If I tilt the guitar forward a bit so I can't look onto the frets anymore (this isn't much of a problem since I can find my frets eyes closed for most of the stuff I play, and hold the neck up a little higher, I can move my fingers over the fretboard without having to bend my wrist so much, basically because the guitar is up high and tilted forward a bit. I'm not sure though if this is what you mean by a good position, hence I made pictures. It's a little more difficult to keep the guitar in its place this way though cause its not really the natural way of resting it on your lap. Thanks in advance again.

Also one more thing: I'm aware of the thumb muting being bad, but I've been using it for so long it'll be hard to get rid of it, should try to mute thicker strings with the palm of my strumming hand from now on?

Pictures:
(some of them aren't oriented the right way, sorry for this)

My regular "old" way of using it:

The new way of holding my guitar (sitting):

My wrist when using the new position, it's still bent a little, but a good bit less than the other way, I've tried but unfortunately I can find no way to have it completely straight:

Now it looks like hand position... if you push your knuckles 'forward' a bit, you'll give a little more arch to your fingers, which should help straighten out the wrist

Hello there once again!

Thanks again for the replies. After some more struggling I'm starting to see the light about correctly moving over the fretboard. I notice with this new way of holding (which now that I look at it, pretty much every guitar player uses, silly me that I did never notice it before D:) I really see the potential in lead guitar playing, and bending and vibrato is really a lot more easy now too. I just have to kinda "re-learn" playing it this way.

My only concern left really is relaxation of my fingers. I read that the key to good technique, and later on, fast playing, is "the light touch" as in putting the least possible pressure on your fingers when pressing strings. I'm practising riffs that I know slowly to make sure I use light pressure, but when I have to play power chords or octaves and such, it takes more pressure to have all strings sound clear, and that generates a lot more pressure on my thumb, which is now the only thing holding the neck, opposed to the entire palm of my hand, like I used to play when I played wrong. Are there maybe any useful tips on playing light, or should I just go back to resting the neck in the palm of my hand when playing "chords"?

Thanks again <:

I don't know how helpful this may be but one thing to think about is that your thumb truly shouldn't be holding the neck. It merely supports it. When you're playing, all the fingers and thumb together keep the neck in place but not by holding it. This is a common misconception and you'll realize it more as you gain more experience playing.

This is one reason most players will use a guitar strap, even when sitting, to keep the neck of the guitar at an optimal angle for the easiest access for the fretting hand to smoothly and lightly position itself on the fretboard. Since you have long fingers, your main concern is going to be using the tips to fret. If you can keep your fingers on their tips (not counting barres, of course) you should find that the neck of your guitar simply rests on the part of your thumb just above the inside first joint. Resist the temptation to grip. Just let the thumb glide along as your fingers move. As you gain experience, you'll find that you can shift your thumb around more and still maintain good fingertip contact.

It sounds like you've made a good start on turning around your initial bad habit. Be patient at this point because you have to "unlearn" before you can "re-learn" and that can take a bit of time. But you'll get there! We all have gone through this at one point or another in our playing and you will, too.

Peace

Interesting thread with some helpful tips for me, I think. I've only just started learning some power chords but I'm having a tough time with them (now that I reasonably understand the theoretical side): I can make my fingers reach even near the nut where the frets are furthest apart but in order to do that I have to bend my wrist at a really uncomfortable angle. Something's wrong somewhere, but the answer's somewhere here I'm sure.