My warm up routine (Part one of infinity)

During my many, many hours of downtime I quite frequently practice guitar. I do this so that I can fool myself into thinking I'm being productive and not just waiting for the clock to progress enough to justify going to sleep and being one day closer to death. Also: METAL!

So I'm going to be printing up some of my warm up routines. You're welcome.


Left hand warm up 1, I use index, ring and pinky throughout. Also: up, down, up, down picking. Also also: I'm lazy and didn't feel like typing ten million dashes, so just pretend this pattern covers all of the strings.
------------------------------------------------------------------------1------1-3----1-3-4-4-3-1---3-1--
---------------------------------------1------1-3-----1-3-4-1-3-4----3-4-----4----------------4------4-3
--------1-----1-3----1-3-4-1-3-4----3-4------4------------------------------------------------------
1-3-4---3-4-------4----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's basically this up and down the board. Once I get back to the first fret on the B string (I play a 7-string. Nu metal fag or Jazz virtuoso? You be the judge,) I move the pattern up to 3, 4 and 6 using index, middle and pinky. Then 4, 6, and 8 using index, middle, pinky. Then the pattern repeats with 6, 8 and 9. I take it up the neck til I can't reach the low string comfortably (around 15 or so,) or my forearm gets warm (but not tight and cramped, unless I'm in a particularly foul mood, this can cause pulled muscles and injury.)

This exercise is in no way musically correct as far as scales and theory. It's just the patterns I use the most often when playing. Purely mechanical. I always try to start off slow and watch for mistakes, particularly with my picking pattern. I found myself hitting a wall about a year ago due to sloppy picking and just using downs and ups more or less randomly. When I practice now I try to focus on down, up, down, up; even when skipping strings, even when it seems counter-intuitive (it pays off in the long run, trust me.)