Beat Saber Quick Warm-Up for Beat Saber (2 mins)

Foreword

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What - A short Beat Saber-aimed warmup guide, will show here only most used areas, this is not a general warmup guide nor a morning workout routine or something.

Why - Warming up won't only decrease the risk of trauma and post-play pain, it can also improve your game performance, should it be important to you.

Note that it's not a conditioning guide for competitive players, it's a short softcore warm-up advice intended to help people to get a good habit and avoid trauma.

I also won't use the muscle names and explain biomechanics because first: who cares, second: it's a quick casual warm-up guide to open and follow.

First things first, I want you to memorize this golden rule:

DO NOT continue playing when you feel pain.

Now to the warmup:

1. Shoulders

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2. Elbows

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3. Wrists

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Potentially Asked Questions:

What if I don't warmup?

-- You might be lucky with your genetics, you might be not. You might be young, you might be not. I don't know how flexible and trained your muscles and joints are but I know that a warmup can't hurt anybody, skipping it can.

Making your joints to work like crazy on Expert and especially Expert+ difficulty can hurt you. If you don't do any sports at all, I believe even Normal difficulty could be challenging for your joints and muscles, so why not taking care of yourself?

Who tf are you, are you a doc?

-- I'm not a doc nor a physiotherapist but I have sports background specifically upper-body training (arms, shoulders and back), I also did tennis (heavy on elbows) and battle rope jumping (heavy on wrists) without any trauma. When I started BeatSaber I thought pfft it'd be a piece of cake for me but once I got comfortable with Expert difficulty, I realised there is actually a need for a proper warmup as the game starts to remind an intensive exercise for some parts of your body.

You don't have to believe anything you find on the Internet and ideally go consult a real doc or do your own proper research but are you really going to? I put some really safe and easy exercises suitable for all ages and levels, they surely won't harm you unless you already have some kind of a trauma you and your doctor are aware of.

Does playing a slow song count as a warmup?

-- I'd say slow songs are great to get back to the game after a long break to check up on your muscle memory or just to recall how the game works.

It will somewhat work as physical warmup since you make you muscles and joints work but it won't warm up all areas properly, especially if you decide to do songs on Expert and higher.

My wrists (.., elbows, shoulders) hurt, I will just make them stronger if I overcome the pain and continue?

-- No. First, if your muscles "hurt", they will "grow" after exercise, not during it. The longer you keep pushing yourself through pain, the longer you will need to recover (= the longer pause you will have to make).

Second, if it's the joints that hurt, you need to immediately stop otherwise you risk to gain a serious trauma, like this[en.wikipedia.org] .

Should you feel any of these, you need to recover, give yourself a break, sometimes 1-2 days are enough, sometimes 1 week, it depend on many factors but you will feel for sure when is the right time for you to come back to the game.

Make sure the pain is gone. The pain appears because you pushed yourself to your limit. Moderate amount of play will train your endurance, thus increasing your personal limit. If the pain doesn't disappear, go see a doc.

Got a pull up bar? -- It can be a great solution to stretch and strengthen your shoulders, elbows and wrists just by hanging on it. Since not everybody might have it at home, I didn't cover how to use it in the guide, google how to hang properly and for how long.

Still, you will need to do some dynamic warm up before the game, hanging on a pull up bar is a static exercise aimed for stretching and strengthening so I'd refer it to conditioning rather than warm-up.

Afterword

Regardless of your grip technique, song difficulty, playstyle and its intensity, I really encorage you to warm up your joints before you start playing the game.

I also found some infos on Beat Saber warm up here, if you want more profound techniques:

General tips on Health and Safety[bsmg.wiki]

Warm up and Recovery guide[docs.google.com]

The Dr. Levi Show #117: Beat Saber!

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2731408800

Quick Warm-Up for Beat Saber (2 mins)