Test Your Skills – The Perfect Warmup

As I’m sure you are, I’m always looking for ways to improve my guitar playing.  Over the past three years since I’ve gotten back into playing after many years of not, my playing has surpassed what it used to be when I was younger, but I still feel I need to do more.  So, I decided to challenge myself to see how much I’ve improved.

I found some excellent warmup exercises on a site called My Guitar Solo.  These are called “Gym Warmups” for the simple fact is it’s like warmup exercises at a gym…up and down.  I decided to start with Gym 1, which starts at the 5th fret of the low E and alternates between the 5th and 6th frets using your index and middle fingers (1 and 2) while going across the fretboard to the high E.  Coming back down, you use your pinky and middle fingers (4 and 2) on the 8th and 6th frets, respectively.  It continues on to incorporate all four fingers in their respective frets.

How hard can that be?  Well, for beginners, it may be slightly difficult to apply enough pressure on the string being played to produce a clear tone while holding all other fingers just slightly above string while over their respective frets with little or no movement and be able to keep in time with a metronome.  If that sounds too easy for you, purchase a finger exerciser.  These can be found online at Amazon.com, or at any participating music store.  They are also used in physical therapy for people who have grip issues.  I have the yellow Digi-Flex 1.5 lbs (0.7 kgs) exerciser.  I followed the same pattern as the gym exercise, but I used a timer to make sure I was holding the desired key down for exactly 5 seconds while making sure that my other fingers were resting on top of the other keys and not pressing down.

The first few times I used the exerciser, I could really feel it in my entire hand, but the more I used it, the more comfortable it became.  How did it help my performance?  Well, my fingers stayed right above the strings with little or no movement because they were conditioned to do so and the muscles were built up to hold them there.  I also noticed less buzzing…especially with my pinky finger.  I plan on buying the next size up exerciser to make it more challenging…as well as try to use the exerciser on the rest of the gym exercises to further strengthen my fingers for different playing patterns.

Another practical use I’ve had for using the finger exerciser is to practice the five boxes of the pentatonic scales.  If you have a diagram of each of these, try it out.  If not, you can always use the diagrams in my blog Know Your Pentatonic Scales.  I’ve noticed after going through each of the boxes with the Digi-Flex, then actually playing them on the guitar, it feels like my fingers are floating on air when I play.

Give it a try and tell me what you think.  I’d also like to hear what you do for warmups and what has worked for you to improve your playing.  The one thing I’ve learned is you can never have enough alternatives when it comes to practicing, playing, and learning.