How do you warm-up

USofguitar

USofguitar

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Dec 4, 2016
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Hi guys,

I'm trying to kinda refresh my Youtube page with more topics and videos about learning, rather than just playing. Talking so much is new to me. Not totally confortable yet.

I thought that warmin-up would be a good subject to start with.

Is that kind of stuff useful to you? How do you warm-up?
I'd appreciate some feedback.

 
Have you ever seen the video by John Petrucci on how he warms up? He stretches everything from fingers all the way through back muscles. I always stretch my hands, fingers, forearms, shoulders and back. Just basically loosen up the whole upper body, but with emphasis on fingers through the elbows. I have a couple extra firm grip squeezer things and I usually do 20 reps each hand, then squeeze them shut and hold them for 10 seconds. I do that before I even walk in the guitar room. Then I stretch fingers and hands while I'm in there. Usually before I play anything but many times I'll play a little first. Sometime around 10 minutes into playing, I stop and stretch my hands, fingers and wrists one more time. THEN, I'm ready to cut loose.

Having been into sports all my life, I always knew the importance of warming up and stretching before games. Never did it for guitar though for many years. I always noticed that I wasn't as sharp when I first started though. And that if I walked in the room and started trying to rip immediately, I was not as sharp as I was after I'd been playing for a while. Heck, I remember many nights playing for as long as 30 minutes. Then ripping into something and realizing how much easier it was than when I first started playing that night. Then I saw the JP video and started actually warming up some and stretching a lot. BIG difference. The funny thing is, it really is like when playing ball or something. I can go run up and down the court a few times and am still a bit tentative. After a few minutes I'll really open up and run, cut, etc. full speed without worrying about pulling something or blowing something. I always run across the outfield a couple times forwards and backwards before playing softball. Same principles apply here.

Now, even if I'm playing blues or strumming chords, I stretch the hands thoroughly. Even on the stuff that requires less dexterity, it really helps.


IMHO/YMMV/CYPFELO4H
 
Gaze lovingly at the case. Open it. Gaze lovingly at the guitar. Wrap my fingers around it and bring it close. Let it whisper to me if it needs the pegs feathered a bit. Play something I know to see if my fingers are going to work today. Ha e at it.
 
Haha cool to get some feedback, buddies.

Well, my points are made: lots of guitarists don't warm-up. Of course I don't believe all style require warm-up. But if you go for more technical stuff (not necessarily "big shred cliché") like some jazz, country or fusion... you need to warm-up. It's safer. Especially if you're going to go for the whole night. And to me it's mostly the right hand I found out. And sometimes warming-up might just be getting the feel of the inner beat. Just getting into it. Or improvising slowly on some pop/jazz standards (All of me, Sunny, Isn't she lovely, I'll see you in my dreams...)

That Petrucci stretching never made sense to me. First of all, because like in any sport, stretching is used to get the blood flowing through the muscles to carry away all the toxins resulting from the effort. It's after the practice that you should be stretching. If you have sore muscles from sickness or previous practice, I understand. But in any other case, I don't see much sense in that.

But I think that I should have better explained that warm-up can be a good opportunity to improve your melodic playing: following the chords, not just playing scales. Using it as an opportunity to develop melodic awareness at slow speed is a great practice for the ear and unlocking the fretboard overview (CAGED system). And to me it has been really inspiring, leading to some songwriting, just getting in the mood, listening to how I feel and what I feel like playing or writing.

Hence I'd say warming-up is a pretty important part of my daily work-out. It's like preliminary for sex. If you swap them, it'll take longer to get to the point where you wanna go. On short and long term.
 
Last edited:
PS: and by the way, that's also why those spiders or chord exercises never made sense to me.

1. it's not fun,
2. you're never gonna use them in musical context,
3. it doesn't develop any musical sensitivity (like ear and dynamic)
 
1. I power on my amp head on standby.
2. I plug in and turn on my pedalboard, MacBook, and Scarlett 212.
3. I walk downstairs to get my guitar and cable from the living room, then walk back upstairs.
4. I plug my guitar into the pedalboard and strap it on.
5. I plug my cans into the Scarlett monitor jack, and put them on.
6. The tubes are now all warmed up. I switch from standby to direct record.

That's what you meant, right? ;-)
 
USofguitar said:
That Petrucci stretching never made sense to me. First of all, because like in any sport, stretching is used to get the blood flowing through the muscles to carry away all the toxins resulting from the effort. It's after the practice that you should be stretching. If you have sore muscles from sickness or previous practice, I understand. But in any other case, I don't see much sense in that.
Click to expand...

I don't want to get all jock on you, but much of this is relative... Most athletes who push any kind of physical limit stretch before and after, but I can tell you they all stretch before! I could go out and run 5 miles right now without stretching at all. I'd take it easy the first couple minutes til things got loosened up, and I'd be fine. But I promise you that I wouldn't even take off at 3/4 speed right now without loosening up and stretching some. And if you asked me to run 100m race right now, I assure you I wouldn't even THINK about it until after I was COMPLETELY warmed up and loose. Big big difference. Applies to anything with muscle use. I work out 3-4 times a week but I wouldn't consider going into a dead sprint without warming up. When I was 25, maybe. Not now! LOL And makes total sense for JP to do what he does. Have you seen the boys arms? It makes total sense that a guy with arms like that stretches arms, shoulders and everything to loosen things up before he plays. Lifting weights tightens up your hands and makes it require more warmup/stretching than someone who doesn't.

But again, I'm saying this won't apply as much to everyone. Some players can just warm themselves up WHILE playing, as I mentioned with jogging. The style of playing and guitar they play may make that possible. Some, are just lions and will eat you without breaking a sweat. Sergio is a lion. Hear him roar. :D
 
I wouldn't say I warm up for practice. I just kind of ease my way in to whatever it is I'm working on.

Before gigs I like the Petrucci string skipping arpeggio warm up and some basic ascending/descending chromatic stuff (1-2-3-4 on each string, shift up half step and 4-3-2-1 back down, shift up half step, repeat). It's all alternate picking, just 'cause that's how I roll. I will sometimes stretch my wrists and forearms if I'm feeling it. Regardless, I usually don't feel like I really get rolling until the second set.
 
also, recognize that we're sort of discussing two different things under one umbrella. Warming up meaning string exercises and warming up as in muscle warming up, streching, etc. I can stretch my hands out before I play and be pretty loose as I start. But I always try to do some fast runs while "warming up" to get my feel/timing right. Rule of thumb for me if I'm getting ready to play something is I play faster while warming up than anything I'll play when performing the song. Sort of the old "If you can hit the 95mph fastball, the 85mph fastball is easy" idea. If I'm playing even a quick line of fast notes, I"ll try to get up to breakneck speed while warming up so that the actual run is easier/cleaner than the warmup was. Again, the "practice should be harder than the game" mentality.
 
I find that doing a pattern that changes strings every other note loosens me up and warms me up faster. Try the Mars Volta-esque pattern scale. I'll draw the tab for first measure. and just move up and down the fretboard from there. It's very Mars Volta sounding.
E-------------------------------------------2---------4----
B--------------------------------------1--------3----------
G-----------------------2-----4----------------------------
D-------------------1-----3--------------------------------
A-----2------4---------------------------------------------
E--1-----3-------------------------------------------------
 
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