Warming up before you play is more important than you think. Going straight into a killer solo with awkward finger positioning could even cause an injury and prevent you from playing for a few weeks. Warming up will also make you play more smoothly and easily.
There are a few things you can do to warm up. What I like to do is pick two or three scales and play them in many positions on the neck. You should start slowly and accelerate as you go. Scales will warm up both your left and right hand.
You can also do exercises that you make up or look something up on the internet. I find that sequences are the most useful.
To warm up your left hand you can play the fast ''Am I Evil'' lick. Its quite an effective warmup exercise as it requires you to increase your speed and decrease it as you go.
My guitar teacher recommended chords to me one day. I couldn't be bothered playing them as I thought they're too simple, but one day i got bored and decided to try. Playing different chords as a warmup exercise is probably my favourite thing as it improves your shifting speed. You can also find all the chord shapes on the internet and learn new ones every day which I did. Knowing lots of chords will give you independence and more ideas for chord progressions when you're playing rhythm guitar.
This is a warmup exercise I think I saw Steve Vai use:
---------------------------------------------------1-2-3-4-------
---------------------------------------1-2-3-4-----------
------------------------------1-2-3-4----------
--------------------1-2-3-4--
----------1-2-3-4----------------
1-2-3-4------------------------
You can move this up and down the neck.
Remember! Whatever you play, warm up before you start!
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