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<span style== Petrucci Chords =="font-size:1.4em">{{loud|ALWAYS WARM UP!!!!}}</span> I am not a doctor. See [[MAB_Wiki:General_disclaimer|Disclaimers]]. Any medical advice below should be reinforced by your own research and advice from a professional. Warming up helps improve your playing and avoid injury. '''Be sure to warm-up both your fretting and picking hands.''' Your fretting hand needs to be stretched so that some uncomfortable chord shapes or finger-stretches don't push you into injury or cramping. This includes your wrist, which needs to angle in difficult positions as well as your fingers. Your fretting hand wrist and elbow need to be loosened up as well. All the muscles and ligaments involved in playing guitar (there are a ''lot'' in your hands) need to be given a gradual introduction to the workload you are about to put on them, to make sure they have good blood flow and nothing is out of place. When you start playing a gig or even recording, trying to hit that difficult lick can be a jarring shock to the biomechanics involved if they weren't warmed up. The main thing to remember for warm-ups is to go slow. Ease your hands into the workload required for playing guitar. Your warm-up exercises should hit all the muscle groups you use during playing. You want to introduce all of them to a very mild difficulty, not a severe strain out the gate. If anything produces a sharp pain, back off and try to ease through it slowly. If it doesn't get better and in fact gets worse, you may already have an injury you need to get treated. Trying to push through the pain can often result in a catastrophic injury that prevents you from ever playing guitar again...or even worse. see Failure to warm-up can cause early onset of [[Advanced Technique Exercises#Petrucci ChordsInjury|Carpal Tunnel or tendinitis]]. == Cardio ==It helps to do several minutes of cardiovascular activity before playing. Running in place or jumping jacks or simply pacing around the room quickly will get the heart working and force blood flow to all the muscles in the body. Restricted blood flow to muscles results not only in weakness and difficulty to control but the build-up of acids and other toxic byproducts. == Stretching =='''Stretching is crucial to reducing <u>Repetitive Stress Disorder</u> (RST) and <u>Carpal Tunnel Syndrome</u> (CTS).''' It improves flexibility of muscles and tendons, reducing their pressure on nerves and blood vessels. It improves blood flow, serving to remove toxins and metabolic byproducts from muscles. It also produces fluid that serves to lubricate joints. '''While stretching is a good part of a warm up, it will have a more powerful impact ''after'' a playing session.''' The small, repetitive movements required by intense guitar playing will aggravate and tighten the muscles and tendons of the hands and wrist, putting pressure on the nerves in the wrist, causing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. ''I recommend a light stretching before a session, perhaps even integrated into your cardio routine, and thorough stretching afterwards, particularly focused on the forearm and finger muscles.'' All stretches should be done carefully - forcing a stretch too quickly or overextending the muscle can itself result in injury. Any pain associated with stretching should be mild and spread throughout the muscle, not sharp and confined to a joint or nerve. Slowly increase tension until the muscle feels slight (but not sharp or intolerable) pain and hold for 20-30 seconds, then release. <youtube>Z0vD5zoaBs4</youtube> === Fingers ===I like to spread the fingers of each hand and touch my palms and fingers together, then raise my elbows/lower my hands so my palms can no longer touch. When done correctly, you should feel each finger muscle get stretched - you should feel it between your fingers as well as through your palms and wrists all the way into your forearms. Then I rotate my wrists, so that my fingers point towards me. Then I turn my wrists in the opposite direction so they point away from.

== Chromatic Scale = Forearms ===This exercise is great for many reasonsAfter giving all my fingers a good stretch as such, I pull my hands away from each other and ball them into a tight fist. First, it gets your left and right hands Then I rotate each wrist in a circular motion to sync loosen them upas well as stretching my forearms on the other side. It warms Then I hold my forearms straight up and try to point my fists at each other - this should stretch the right hand with alternate pickingforearm muscles thoroughly. It warms up the left with equal emphasis on all the fingersThen rotate your fists to point away from your body, small stretches, and small position shiftsthen towards your body.

''This next one is crucial.'' E------------------------------------------1-2-3-4-Place one arm straight out ahead of you, fingers straight but touching together, palm facing downward. B----------------------------------2-3-4-6---------Use your other hand to lift your fingers and pull them back towards your body, so your palm is now facing away from your body. G--------------------------2-3-4-5----------------- D------------------3-4-5-6------------------------- A----------4-5-6-7--------------------------------- E--5-6-7-8----------------------------------------- E--4-3-2-1----------------------------------------- B----------5-4-3-2--------------------------------- G------------------5-4-3-2------------------------- D--------------------------6-5-4-3----------------- A----------------------------------7-6-5-4--------- E------------------------------------------8-7-6-5-Repeat this exercise, but this time start with the palm facing up, and pull the fingers downward so the palm is again facing away from you.

E--------------------------------------------------4-5-6-7/8- B----------------------------------------4-5-6-7/8----------- G--------------------------------4-5-6-7--------------------- D----------------------4-5-6-7/8-----------------------------=== Shoulders ===Next, be sure to stretch your shoulders. A------------4-5-6-7/8---------------------------------------Grab above your elbow with the opposite hand and try to pull your elbow towards your rib cage below your armpit. E--4-5-6-7/8----------------------------------This will stretch the shoulder and shoulder---------------blade muscles. You can also grab your opposing forearm behind your back and try to pull. E--8-7-6-5\4------------------------------------------------- B------------8-7-6-5\4--------------------------------------- G----------------------7-6-5-4------------------------------- D------------------------------8-7-6-5\4--------------------- A----------------------------------------8-7-6-5\4----------- E--------------------------------------------------8-7-6-5\4-Once complete, be sure to make large circular movements with your shoulders.

When moving between strings=== Neck ===Finally, be sure stretch your neck. Try to hold your shoulders back and push your head back, like you are trying to retain strict alternate pickingretract your chin into your neck. In the first setNow turn your neck as far left and right as possible, there's always an even number of notes per stringback and forth. So if we As you turn back and forth, slowly start the first note on a downstroketilting your head backwards, so you are looking upwards. Next, try to push your shoulders lower, each string should all start similarly on a downstrokewhile tilting your neck left and right. Practice Don't tilt the exercise starting on neck too hard - try to lower the shoulders more until you can your lats get a downstroke as well as on an upstrokegood stretch.

In the second exercise, there are usually 5 notes per string, meaning we will alternate starting each string on down and upstrokes. This helps us practice both == Injury ==see [[C_Major_in_Open_Position_and_Alternate_Picking#Cross-String:_Inside|"inside" and "outside" pickingInjury]].

The main thing to watch in both sets is to try to get a consistent note duration and tone as you play across strings. You have to make sure not to pick up your pinky too quickly== Petrucci Chords ==Again, but you also have to curl it enough not to prevent touching it against the next string to prevent muting that note. You also have to make be sure you always fretting right behind the fret to get a clean sound. If go slow and back off if you are fretting those pinky notes in the middle of the frets instead, you will notice the tone is offfeel any sharp pain.see [[Advanced Technique Exercises#Petrucci Chords]]

Practicing various ascending and descending scales (be sure to play through the transitions from ascending to descending and descending to ascending) is always a good idea, especially the scales and positions you are likely to perform. You can find a giant reference of all the common scales at [[Ref: Common Scales|here]], and full scale maps across the entire fretboard for the major and minor scales at [[Ref: Scale Fret Maps for all Major/Natural Minor Keys w/ CAGED breakdown|here]]. For lots of exercises, see [[Common Scale Exercises]]. ''Note: these exercises are better for warming up the right hand than the left. I'd rather perform the Petrucci Chords or Chromatic Scale exercises for the left-hand, as those have a more consistent emphasis on all the left-hand fingers.''

Just like scales, arpeggios are good exercise - focus on the ones you'll tend to use. Or at least the ones that give you fingers a good work out. There is reference for all the CAGED [[Ref: CAGED Chord Chart for all Major ChordsCharts|CAGED major]] and [[Ref: CAGED Chord Chart for all Major Chords|minor]] triads. It should be somewhat simple to alter these to fit other chord types, which are referenced at [[Ref: Mega List of Chord Fingerings/Voicings|here]]. For example, adding the minor 7th of dominant major/minor chords.

Similar to the Petrucci Chords exercise above, we make a chord shape with each finger on adjacent frets. Each time you strum the chord, you move one of the fingers down one fret.  see [[Advanced Technique Exercises#Finger-12\11-11-11-11\10-10-10-10-...2\1-1-1-1- -13-13\12-12-12-12\11-11-11-...3-3\2-2-2- -14-14-14\13-13-13-13\12-12-...4-4-4\3-3- -15-15-15-15\14-14-14-14\13-...5-5-5-5\4- This exercise is great, because as you descend down each fret at a time, the exercise gets more and more difficult. It forces you to stretch between each pair of adjacent fingers, which really helps limber up your hands to make complex chord shapes and work through exotic scales all over the fretboard. This will get insanely difficult quickly. Don't push yourself into injury - if you feel intense pain, stop immediately. Don't try to get through it quickly either. Hold each chord and let your fingers muscles accept the stretch.  Here's another one focusing on the index finger and pinky. Be sure to keep the index finger fretted at all times forcing you to stretch rather than bouncing back and forth.  -17-12-16-11-15-10-...-10-5-9-4-8-3 p i p i p i p i p i p iStretching]]