All guitarists, at whatever level, should start by warming up. Whether it is for a practice session, a lesson, playing a song, or performing at a gig. This will ensure you hit the ground running and optimise your playing. It will also help prevent hand injuries and the like.

If you don’t invest some time in warming up, then you won’t be playing your best from the outset. This can mean you make mistakes you thought you had eradicated, and cause a drop in your motivation levels — and you definitely don’t want that to happen.

This is even more important if you are at the beginning of your guitar playing journey, when learning easy guitar songs, or reading basic tabs.

Here are 4 easy exercises designed to warm you up and help you maximise your potential:

1. Warm up your hands.

Get your circulation moving by shaking your hands, clasping them together, stretching your fingers and perhaps running warm water over them. This will increase their mobility, flexibility and sensitivity, so you can “feel” what you are playing with no discomfort. There is nothing worse than having a tight, immobile feeling in your hands that will bring rigidity to your playing. Just 2 minutes or so will help alleviate all of this

2. Fretting and Stretching Exercise.

Start by playing the open low E string and then fretting the 1st fret of the same string with your forefinger, the 2nd with your middle finger, the 3rd with your ring finger and the 4th fret with your pinky. Repeat this on every string, all the way to the 4th fret of the high E string and then play exactly the same but in reverse. Start slowly and gradually build up speed; remember, accuracy is the key, even when you are warming up. If you want to take this one step further, try missing out some of the adjacent frets so you can really feel your fingers stretch.

3. Chord and Strumming Hand Warm Up.

Pick any three open chords and, if you are able, any three barre chords using a minor, major and seventh shape. Play them in any sequence (one after the other) using down four strokes and then up four strokes, ensuring you only strike the correct strings for that chord and making all the notes ring out clearly. Then change to using a basic down/up strum pattern and, when you feel comfortable, adding in an embellishment (say a quick down/up/down strum). As always, start slowly and gradually pick up your speed once you have warmed up sufficiently and are not making any mistakes. This is a great exercise when you are intending to play some easy guitar songs.

4. Picking Hand Accuracy (String Skipping)

A simple, mostly overlooked, warm up exercise, is to ensure your picking hand is “good to go.” With this in mind, take 3 open and barre chords (but different to the ones used in Exercise 3) and pluck any string of the chord, followed by another that is not an adjacent to the one you have plucked. If you start at the A string, then pluck the G and then E. Or maybe start at the B and follow that by the fretted (or could be open) D and Low E strings…..and then just mix and match. This will really help you sort out the feeling in your picking hand before you embark on your session.

Of course, there are many more exercises you can use, and you will develop your own warm-up routines over time, but hopefully these will give you a great starting point.