I don’t have as much time as I use to so if I get an hour or two to practice I’ve got to make use of my time. I notice it takes me about 30-45 mins before I start playing cleanly and it can be frustrating .
I’d just like to hear other peoples experience with this and maybe ways to get the hands working quicker.
Thanks,
Simon
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I think it varies for individuals as far as warming up is concerned. On certain days I would be on fire and just start blazing on the fretboard, and on certain days I could warm up for a really long time and still not get both my hands to achieve a clean sound and their always in a state of hit and miss (mostly miss)
As far as experience goes, I think that you need to embrace rainy days too when it comes to how long you need to warm up. Although for myself, I think massaging and lightly rubbing your hands, and doing the old school chromatic run (doesn’t have to be fast) does kinda accelerate the warming up process for both my hands. Do check out John Petrucci’s Rock Discipline for examples of warming up, they’ve honestly helped me out so much.
Persistence is key. I’ve had tons bad practice sessions before, but at least I walked away learning something I should do and returned the next day knowing what to avoid and so on. If it takes me 30-45 mins just to warm up, so be it, but you need to set a mental note saying that okay, I’ll make it like that for now, but I’m going to aim for 30 mins the next round. And then 15 mins, and then 10 yknowwhatimean? 3 steps backward 1 step forward. Adding some pressure is a good way to keep your progress in check while taking your time to build it up, in a sense. Recently I’ve gotten into the habit of documenting my practice sessions with my phone too, so that it’ll be a good motivating factor for me to watch back on my progress and improve even more 
Embrace the process and keep on picking! Hope I’ve helped
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What’s your warm-up look like?
I’ve found that strumming some fast power chords is much more beneficial as a warm-up than the conventional alt-pick chromatics that are recommended, and far more enjoyable.
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I don’t really do “warmup”, per se, I just do whatever I sat down to do. However long it takes to feel comfortable is however long it takes. As @zhang says sometimes it’s instant, other times it takes a little longer.
What I will say is warmup shouldn’t affect your ability to play cleanly, in the sense of execute your basic motions, whatever they are. When a motor movement is learned, it’s super consistent and difficult to change, because it’s baked into your long term memory. If you notice large variability or unpredictability in your technique, it could be that it is simply not learned yet.
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I know right xD
Even when I was starting out back then I wanted to orientate both hands to function while making it enjoyable before getting down to business. I find riffs very enjoyable in my particular case. I loved playing along to the intro and verse Malmsteen’s Rising Force to get myself pumped in a way yknowwhatimean?
Gosh I’m so glad I’m not alone in this bahaha
So yush, important to always orientate and reorientate when necessary.
Also @simonheron71 I know how you feel when you say you have limited time to practice. I work in retail so due to the nature of my job I always end up working long hours and coming back home late. Id have my dinner, a shower and squeeze in at most 1 or 2 hours of practice before hitting the hay. Can you even imagine practicing in the current state I’m in xD
But the amazing thing about this is that if you just set about to fulfill your goals objectively with the amount of time you’re given, and when you factor in persistence, you’re going to build up better discipline towards your craft so that you can practice better the next day. Soon enough, warm ups are going to be a thing of the past, and you’ll only come back to it when doing something much more intense or whatever yknow.
Sure, you’re going to struggle initially after going to your guitar later. It’s going to be cold turkey from here on, but know that as long as you commit to the woodshed, the results will definetly show.
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There’s something to be said about that rush of joy when you crank out those sexy riffs, haha
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Start with an easy win - something you know you can play right, every time.
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Don’t confuse “needing to warm up” with still being in the mechanical-problem-solving stage. If something is taking you 30 minutes to get clean at the moment, maybe in a month it will take 25 minutes, maybe in 6 months it will be available to you right away.
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If your hands are actually cold, run them under the hot tap for a bit.
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As far as I know getting warmed up skill wise, is all about recalibrating the nervous system. Our daily lives are nothing like the fine movements of guitar work. And causes the system to drift off target. Becoming scaled to whatever we did most that day or didn’t do. You could incorporate pre calibration activities, like writing with your picking hand. Computer mouse use. Etc.
I’m left handed, but play right hand guitars, I find if I switch my mouse to my right hand, I’m better adjusted for guitar work. As it’s similar motions/scale of motions.
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Or you might just induce RSI with mousing, which takes most of us out of position.
Well if I said use a mouse aggressively for 5 hours before you play I might agree with you 
I start any guitar session playing some very undemanding, low-intensity things for the first minute or two. If everything feels ok, I ramp up the intensity pretty quickly after that. If I don’t “feel” smooth and loose and comfortable after the first couple of minutes, I either do something other than play guitar, or I do a bit of gentle finger, wrist, and forearm stretching, before resuming (emphasis on moving joints gently through a full range of motion). I usually I feel fine without stopping to do any stretching. I can’t remember ever having a time when I stopped to stretch, and then didn’t feel loose enough for high intensity playing afterward. If that ever did occur, I’d either abort the session, or limit it to “low intensity” actions.
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It seems to takes me ages to warm up too. Usually at least 15 mins and sometimes longer. I’ve been trying to do useful things during that time, such as practicing difficult scale sequences at a slower tempo.
I was doing the chromatic thing for a long time which certainly has built up my right hand picking speed but I realised it only trains one pick slant direction.
I tried a few alternatives, but then discovered this exercise from Ben Eller, which lets you practice all picking slants/changes while doing a chromatic warmup:
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Boom! Thats it right there. It works both ways - you can be technically ready, but not warmed up or you can be warmed up but not technically sound. I suppose the real challenge is being able to identify which camp you are in at any given time.
I reckon you need to have a small selection of licks or tunes that are near the top end of your comfort zone that can be used to prove that you are warmed up (but are not used as your warm-up). Once you warm up and successfully play the test lick, then you can consider yourself officially warmed up and ready to work on the mechanical problems.
It is also important to not judge your warming up playing - that us where you are neant to play like poop…
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About a month ago I started going back to basic stuff I have skipped such as really working on single string stuff. My picking has gotten way more precise. THAT has made my warmup take like 2 seconds lol.
So now the first thing I play when I pick it up will be something like the Yngwie 6 note pattern in a nice rhythm. Then maybe start moving that across the strings. Then im sort of off to the races
Sometimes if I start with more 3nps or ‘2 way’ stuff I can start pressing too fast and get all tense and sloppy etc