Finger Warm Up Exercises for Guitar

Why is warming up important?

Just like you would stretch before you workout at the gym, so should you stretch before you take your fingers to the gym! By trying to practise a new guitar lick or chop with tense finger muscles and stiff finger joints, it's just going to make it ten times more awkward. Your guitar playing development should not be held back by unnecessary obstacles.

As a guide, go through the exercises below for about 15-20 minutes before your practicing/playing sessions, and feel the difference it makes! I'm starting to sound like a fitness shopping channel.

Note: all these exercises ideally require the use of alternate picking. If you don't know what that involves, it's pretty simple - this lesson will introduce you to alternate picking, along with some basic exercises.

Chromatic finger warm up exercises

This is a classic way to warm up - many guitarists swear by it.

Chromatics basically involve playing a sequence of semi-tone (one fret) intervals one after the other. This works well as a finger warm up exercise for guitar because it's a simple repetitive sequence of using your 4 fretting fingers in a line on the fretboard.

With the chromatic exercises below, use strict alternate picking to help get your fret hand-pick co-ordination up to scratch. Make sure each note/fret is cleanly separated from the last/next.

Start slow, using a metronome, and speed up gradually, making sure you are playing each note cleanly. You should only increase the tempo of the metronome once you are 100% confident with the current tempo.

The first chromatic exercise involves a vertical pattern across the 6 guitar strings. Look at the animation below, and follow the sequence all up the guitar neck...

It can get tricky as you get passed the 12th fret, because the fret spacings are smaller and those of us with long fingers can get a bit tangled up! Remember, don't touch that metronome's tempo until you can do this exercise cleanly - have discipline and patience!

You can also try the "staggered" chromatic sequence - same sequence as above, but this time you step up each fret for each string...

Step that pattern over all 6 strings, then just descend back down again in the same, or a different pattern (mix it up a little)

Now try reversing the arrows in the diagrams above :)

Another variation (seems like we could go on forever here!) is to use the sequences above, but climb/ascend on one string and then fall/descend on the next string up.

You can probably guess what I'm gonna tell you now... try and come up with your own sequences (there's countless combinations you can try). If you feel your fingers aching that's actually a good sign you're giving them a workout. Shake off the stiffness, wait a few seconds, and go again. Start slow and only when you're physically comfortable with the pattern, then you turn that metronome up a notch.

3 finger warm up patterns

As well as chromatics, you can try other patterns using just 3 of your fingers (in various combinations) to give that particular muscle memory some attention.

For example, in exactly the same movements as above in the chromatic exercises (e.g. first use the vertical movement, then the "staggered" etc.), try the patterns below using 3 fingers per string instead of 4...

So we skip one fret in that finger sequence above - this actually makes use of your finger muscles and joints in a different way to chromatics, because you're moving from the index finger to the ring finger, rather than index to middle finger.

Also, there's skipping from middle finger to pinky finger...

You can really have a good stretch by spanning the below three-finger pattern across 6 frets, still using the vertical and staggered sequences from earlier...

I use my index, middle and pinky for these patterns!

Other useful finger exercises

Remember, these all still apply to those vertical and staggered sequences from the chromatic exercises on this page, but also try to mix them up a little (e.g. ascend up using the stepped sequence, then descend using the vertical sequence... or vice versa).

Using your index and ring fingers only...

Using your index and pinky fingers only...

Using your middle and pinky fingers only...

A pattern using all 4 fingers across 6 frets...

More...

Remember, these are only basic warm-up exercises - they do not cover techniques like string skipping and runs, which require yet another form of muscle memory. Guitarists at first don't realise just how many different movements their fingers are required to make when playing guitar!

TIP: You don't just have to use chromatics and non-melodic patterns to warm-up. Learn scales and modes and use them to warm up.

That's all for this lesson. However you warm-up, do it for at least 10 minutes before your practice/playing session - it really does make a huge difference!