Hand Excercises / stretches

Sometimes I’ll pick up my bass keen to get in an hour or so of practice but my hands just don’t want to play ball. Does anyone know any good excercises, and stretches, to loosen up hand and fingers? Warm up tunes would be handy too. Would be great if Josh could do a video on this as well.

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Do a set of up and down the first 4 frets from E to G. Maybe 100 bpm. There’s no rush. It’s stretching and warm up
1234 going up 4321 coming back down
1324 up 4231 down
1423 up 3241 down
You get the idea. Change the combination but do the sequence up and down it helps to write them down. Do this for 5 mins set the timer

Then I’d do finger yoga for about 5 minutes.

Then come back and spend another 5 minutes doing 3 fingers any predetermined combo.

It’s more productive and fun. I took that from one of the Cory Wong lessons.

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I have an edit I’d like to make to this suggestion.
The 4 finger exercise is perfect and great, and I do recommend doing a first, second, third, fourth finger warm up exercise.
But I don’t recommend it at the 1st fret.

On bass, I would recommend starting that warm up at the 5th or 7th fret. Somewhere where the frets are a bit closer together, the arm is a little closer to the body, and you’re not having to do such a massive stretch.

So, 5,6,7,8 on every string, 8,7,6,5 on every string. (or from 7th fret if it’s more comfortable).
If you’re feeling a bit more limber, start moving down the neck toward the first fret.

Hope these ideas help.

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Hi,

For warm up tunes, I’d second @Gio 's advice, do something easy. It’s more about mobilising than stretching. You should work on your flexibility separately, not as a warm up. That’s what yoga teachers mean when they say “move at your own pace.”

This is a great video for hand stretches in general:

For a warm up routine, check out this video and then make your own version:

Cheers,
Antonio

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I’m going to say Harmonizing the Major scale is one of my go to warm ups. It gets the dexterity going but it also sneakily throws in some theory that I end up absorbing without realizing. Win Win.

If you haven’t already, check out Dan’s YT channel. Lots of fantastic stuff.

Im just going to leave this here

in all seriousness I have poor finger circulation and find the warm up exercises especially are helpful to do before I play if my hands are achy.

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Hi there,

I’m going to add the video below for a nice hand exercise:

It’s a great way to move your fingers around, and it has a clear ending because of the count.

Have fun!
Antonio

You can cut a broom handle in half, drill a hole in the middle, then attach a length of cord with a weight at the end. Twist the weight down and back up with palms facing down and then again with palms facing up.
Most of the muscles that move our fingers are in our forearms (I think the fingers might not have muscles in them) and forearms can be worked everyday.
There are plenty of dexterity moves that you can practice away from the bass. The ones suggested above are all very good. It is useful to have some strength also.
There is an old expression “don’t play tennis to get into shape. Get into shape to play tennis “
I prefer this exercise to the grip exercisers like the spring loaded squeezers.

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Going to give this thread some serious attention… finding this stuff is becoming more and more important as the sands of time fall.

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