Guitar Exercise to Strengthen your Fingers

There are many exercises that you can do to strength your finger tips and develop solid calluses on your tips. The quicker you develop calluses the easier it is for you to play. The easier it is for you to play the long your practice (since it won’t hurt nearly as much). The longer you practice the better you will get at playing. It’s a great circle and it works really well but you need to work on part one very diligently.

Calluses on your left hand will develop to the point that your tips are hard and it even when you play for long periods of time you will have the protection of the tougher skin. So let’s work on those fingers for a bit.

The exercise is called the hammer and pull. Take index finger and place it on any fret on the 1st string (the thinnest), pluck just that string. While the string is vibrating take you middle finger and “hammer” it down on the next fret up on the same string. The string will change notes up one half step. Then while the string is still vibrating, “pull” the middle finger back off by pulling your finger down and off the string.

You will hear the string go back down to its original note and because you have “pulled” the string you are ready to do the same thing again since the string is still vibrating. Continue to hammer and pull until the vibrations gets to the point where the string is no longer active.

Do the same thing with the middle finger with the ring finger doing the hammering and pulling. Continue with the ring finger and the pinky. You can also do this exercise with the index finger to an open E string where you would hammer and pull between the open string and the 1st fret of the E string.