Stubborn Fingers! HELP

I've been playing for a pretty long time now.. but I still can't figure this out...
What do experienced guitarrists when your fingers are frozen (cold) or haven't been used in a while (like when you're waking up) and just don't want to move!! I need a quick excercise for losing up my fingers without too much motion, because I think I have a problem (don't know if it's a problem...) that when my fingers are like that, my articulations hurt like hell when I try to play...

Please post your techniques for losing your fingers up before playing!!!

Thanks A Lot,
Alain Jacomet

You can do hand streatches, like Kirk Hammett do.
Hold your arm out in front of you, absolutely straight. Then hold your hand straight up and do that live long and prosper thing that Spock does on star trek, and hold that for a while. Then move your middle and ring fingers together in the middle of your hand, and keep you index and pinky away from those fingers, and hold your hand like that for a while.
Now do the same two hand positions only with your hand pointed staight down at the floor. Your hands should be streached out fairly well, and that'll decrease the time it takes for your hands to get going.

Tty Ben-Gay

Pushing and pulling your fingers always helps. You also can warm up by putting your hands under hot water or by the fire or up to the grill (even when it's not on(that's a pianist thing). A good streth also it to straighten one of your arms out and pull you finger back... and also push you hand down doing that.

I'd say that if your joints ache, you should see a doctor or something.

There are no 'quick' exercices to warm up. I personally warm up by playing blues licks, no scales or anything.I ben d a couple of notes, and noodle around for 10/15 minutes.

When I first wake up, it takes forever to get warmed up on the guitar, or any kind of physical action. The simplest solution to this is to take a HOT BATH!! This warms up your body (literally), which loosens up the muscles/tendons, etc.

I used to take a shower before I went to sleep to shorten morning preperation time for school/work, but some nights I'd just be too tired and go to sleep. Waking up, I was going to take a shower, but I was too tired to stand up so I took a bath, instead (I'm not a morning person :) It felt great, and I realized I was a lot looser than when I usually woke up, so I've been taking morning baths ever since.

A note to guys: Contrary to popular belief, taking baths instead of showers does not in any way lower your level of masculinity unless you tell your friends ;)

I'll have to try that morning bath thing.

O.K... so these are the steps to take before playing the guitar (if your fingers are hard):

1.- dive your fingers in really hot water and leave them there for 5 minutes.
2.- do the captain spock streches! :P
3.- and a little excercise that a friend told me:

-------------------------------------1-2-3-4-
----------------------------1-2-3-4---------
-------------------1-2-3-4----------------- And backwards...
----------1-2-3-4---------------------------
-1-2-3-4-------------------------------------

After doing the 1-2-3-4, you do 1-2-4-3, then 1-3-2-4, 1-3-4-2... get the idea?
You don't have to do them all, just until your fingers are lose.

I have had the same problem in the past. And when I saw someone about it, they said this can be caused by a weakness in the fingers. Here's a good exercise to strenghten your fingers...

play a bar chord arpeggio'd (spell check) like this, using only 1 finger. Make sure holding down all the strings so they're not muted. Then do this with all your finger.

E--1--2--3--4------------------
B--1--2--3--4------------------
G--1--2--3--4------------------
D--1--2--3--4------------------
A--1--2--3--4------------------
E--1--2--3--4------------------

Do this a couple of times with each finger. this technique will strenghten your fingers, but the best is to buy one of those gripmasters. they work well. Ben-say or any other muscle relaxer works too.

If you are still having problems, or it hurts to do this exercise. I would take to a doctor about it.