Long underwear, a sweater, hot cup of coffee
…
Oh…right, for playing! Well, my latest routine is running some arpeggio scales in different keys (1-3-5; 2-4-6; 3-5-7; etc. ) then doing some 16th note chugging taking turns to omit a note.
Or, sometimes I just sit down and play. Often only have 20-30 minutes at a time.
I am definitely older! Haha. I warm up firstly by making sure my hands are warm. I then go through about 5 minutes of playing every note on the fretboard naming them as I go I then play 5 to 6 etudes in a row, building my speed as I go and then play one song a different one each day. After that im.good to go. Note,I don’t use any scales, I know them and note me to tears.
So for quite a while now I warm up using the pentatonic exercise below from Rich Brown.
There are three variants:
It is a fantasic exercise to get you all over the fretboard, and it sounds GREAT.
It stretches your fingers, if you are clever you think about the notes you are playing at the same time for bonus learning, and starts to burn some useful patterns into your noggin.
The second video contains the exercise, but is build on the first video.
Then I will play some riffs I can actually remember.
And whatever song I am working on a bit.
Then get into whatever I am actually wanting to do.
I do major and minor scales and major/minor arpeggios. I noodle with triads. Play some easy riffs-then get on with it hahaha.
Before I even start playing, I run my hands under warm water (and then dry them very thoroughly!). I have a condition called Raynaud’s and for the unfamiliar, it means that I have occasional “attacks” where my fingers will straight-up change colour and freeze into place. Unfortunately, it also means that even when I’m not having an attack, my fingers are natural ice cubes. Without the water first, it takes a very long time for me to get my hands actually warm at all.
After that, I do a couple of scales and then play whatever I’m currently trying to learn before actually getting down to a more structured practice. Timing-wise it varies; I could probably do for a bit more structure, because right now warmup just lasts until I think “yeah, that’s probably fine”, and being pretty new to bass I know that my judgement of “probably fine” is “probably wrong”. 
I would just play songs I’m working on really, as a warm up (if I would even call it that). More like having fun 
If the room is cold, I use a heatpack to warm my hands as my fingers won’t move properly otherwise.
I started reading the Paul Wolfe Deliberate Practice book and it confirmed what I’d been thinking, which is that my practice was basically aimless and I need to focus more on the stuff that really needs work.
I meant to finish the book last week and write out a schedule of sorts but we had some family issues and bass took a bit of a back seat. After playing daily for nearly three months it felt bizarre going back to bass after two days off and my practice was terrible. So, I am going to incorporate some of the advice people have shared above just to jazz things up a bit.
Do you “warm up” or do you just start? 
I play something simple without any stretches. Sometimes I just watch a lesson and follow the sloooow instructions… 
How long do you warm up for? 
5 Minutes?
What kinds of things do you find helpful? Stretches? Exercises? Chemical assistance? 
Weirdly, I found jamming away to a drummachine (VoxAmplug!) when I’m standing very helpful. Stretches help me more the day after. 
Cheers,
Antonio
PS: I have been thinking about fingerless gloves recently, because I constantly have cold fingers. Rubbing your hands together works only so far, and my fingers cool down again over time. 
Mostly i dont 
I don’t really warm up. Sometimes I start out with a part of song I am trying to learn that I know gave me troubles the last time I played it and slow it down 75%, sometimes even to 60%, so that is kinda my warm up, playing parts of a song much slower.
Sometimes I just start with the song at 100%, and then either afterwards work on the parts that gave me trouble slowed down, or abort at the first sign of trouble and directly put that part in slow motion.
I’m not admitting to older or wiser @JoshFossgreen but I am trying to make a video response. Otherwise, I would have thrown a bunch of words your way already.
I like to stretch my fretting hand first by just switching between positions on the neck without playing anything first, then I’ll just start playing, and my plucking hand doesn’t take long to get in playing shape. I know this will sound like a complex warmup, but Hysteria by Muse is great for my plucking hand.
Welcome @Janus! If Hysteria is just your warm-up exercise, I’m curious about what else you can play 
Right? If that’s beginner stuff, I’m fully scr3w3d.
Thank you for the warm welcome! Hysteria isn’t hard for me only because the first thing I practiced on bass was my plucking technique, and I got it in really good shape by learning riffs that were much less work for the fretting hand. I focused on the fretting hand when I was satisfied. I decided to learn Hysteria and all I had to do was add the notes. And Josh has a killer lesson on the riff as well which helped me iron out my mistakes.
Josh. I do your basic learn the note names exercise from your book for 15 minutes. I start around 80bpm and work up in 5bpm increments. I say the note names aloud and really try to work on my technique and make sure each notes rings true. I then work on the beast for 30 minutes in a key. Again I increase speed in 5bpm increments. Some days I just keep it really slow depending on how I am feeling. I usually change key every three days. I consider this to be my warmup.
I find myself in really good shape to tackle songs after the warmup. I really notice the difference if I don’t do it.
I have also started including the beastly arpeggios for an additional 30 minutes when I have time. As I get more proficient my goal is to be able to do both beastly exercises everyday.
Hysteria left hand is not hard for me but I just can’t keep up that chugging speed for the whole song, and I refuse to play it with a pick due to some kind of personal challenge 
(plus, I play almost everything else with a pick).
I think if we are totally honest, most of us warmup by noodling. It’s what we all do a lot of the time.
