Hello, singing friends!
This lovely November 5th brings you a full joint warm up to incorporate into your singing practice. But first, why is working on your joints so important as a singer?
Enter… Proprioception. Where in the heck is your body in space?? Your joints, muscles and tendons are full of sensors called proprioceptors that tell your brain where each body part is and how it’s moving. Rolling and bending each joint sends a nice flow of this signal to the brain. That sharpens your brain’s body map, so you have better balance, coordination and awareness of all body parts. Singing is a full body endeavor! Plus, warming up your joints causes you to slow down and breathe, and it just feels good too.
Well, how do we even know this stuff works? Before we begin the join warm up, I will have you take a body and a voice assessment. There are a few options I will show you in the video. You will perform this assessment before and after the exercises to see how much your brain loves having warm joints. I’d love to hear which one is your favorite.
The video below is a little shy of 14 minutes long. I know, that’s long. But once you watch it once you will get the hang of it and can refer to my quick reference list below of all the exercises.
Last thing before you begin, REMEMBER THESE RULES:
Breathe, breathe, breathe. Your brain is going to work very hard on these joint exercises, and you may notice that you will want to hold the breath. Before you start, remind yourself to continue breathing in and out steadily.
Cracks and Choppiness does not = bad. When you move these joints, especially if your knees are anything like mine, you may hear some crickles and pops. This is okay. What you don’t want is to move into pain. Which brings me to #3.
Don’t move into pain. If it hurts, decrease the range of motion. If this still doesn’t help, put a pin in it (metaphorically speaking) and we’ll come back to that joint later.
If it’s choppy, give it some love. Manually rubbing joints with your hands tells the brain, “hey! I exist!” When your movements start to feel choppy instead of smooth, stop, give them a rub, and see if this helps. You can also decrease the range of motion to get a smoother movement.
Go SLOW. Do not rush these movements. Nice and easy does it.
Okay, let’s get to it! In the video, practice along with me and pause anytime you want to work it out a little bit more. Otherwise, just refer to the quick guide below of all exercises so that you can just do it at your own pace.
Quick Reference Guide
Ankle Tilts. Place one foot in front of the other. Tilt your large toe over your pinky toe, so that the ankle is tilting to the side. Repeat 3-4 times per side. If one side is particularly tight, spend some time on that one.
Ankle Rolls. Slowly rotate each foot around in a complete circle. Do this in each direction 3-4 times per ankle. The goal is to get the smoothest circle as possible.
Knees. With your feet apart, toes pointing forward, bring the knees in towards the center together, and back out again. Then reverse directions. Do this 4-5 times in each direction.
Pelvis. Hands on your hips, with quite a big bend in the knees. Bring one side of the pelvis up, then the other. Swing side to side like this a few times, smoothing out the movement. Then go forward backward. Think of lifting up your belt buckle, then pushing it back. Really isolate just the pelvis, keep a bend in the knees. Finally, put it together in all directions, try to make one smooth circle all the way around. Do this 4-5 times in each direction.
Thoracic Spine. Put arms out like a T. Glide the ribs from side to side, until it feels smooth. Then go front to back by doing a standing cat cow. Finally, put it all together and see if you can take your ribs around in a full circle, both directions, 4-5 times.
Shoulders. Extend arm out with a fist at the end. Draw an infinity sign in the air, 3-4 times both directions. Then draw a figure 8 in the air, 3-4 times, both directions. Repeat with the other shoulder.
Elbows. Hold out your arm like a plate and put your opposite elbow on it. Rotate your forearm in complete, smooth cirlces. Both directions, 4-5 times. Repeat with the other elbow.
Wrists. Keep elbows in at your sides. Glide the wrists up and down, doing your best to smooth out the motion. Then go side to side, kind of like you are playing a piano. Let the hands follow the wrists so they get that movement, the hands and wrists should not move together as one unit.
Fingers. You can do finger circles, or bend fingers in one at a time starting with pinkies, then with thumbs.
Neck. Smooth neck circles in each direction, 4-5 times.
