Physical warm-up exercises
You may not believe it, but doing physical warm-up exercises can be make-or-break before
any presentation – literally! Warming up your ankles, for example, helps prevent any nasty
trip-ups as you make your way to the stage. Here is a series of top-to-toe exercises. Please be careful if you have a recent injury or medical condition.
Vocal warm-up exercises
Most professional presenters and speakers go through a series of vocal exercises before they face
their audiences. If you’re not relaxed and in the right frame of mind when you start to speak, you could
come across as either nervous or wooden.
Feet 1ft apart, shoulders down, back straight, head facing forward. Then head slowly
down, wait a second, rotate to the left and then lift head up, looking over your left
shoulder. Head down and rotate back to the centre, slowly
bring head up and look forward. Repeat this sequence to the right. Then repeat total left
and right in turn 6 times.
Roll your shoulders forward and back 8 times.
Raise your left arm straight above your head with your right hand grasping it at the elbow. With
your shoulders above your hips, bend to the right and hold for 10 seconds. Change your
hands over and bend to the left and hold. Repeat set 3 times.
Rotate and bend your hips from side to side for 30 seconds.
Put your feet together and with your hands on your knees, bend and rotate your knees
4 times in each direction.
Rotate each ankle 8 times clockwise and anti-clockwise.
Place your hands on your lower ribs. Breathe in fully and slowly through the nose and out through
the mouth.
Repeat 10 times.
One great exercise for pitch and breath control is to hum any simple tune you know with
an ‘M’ sound. Don’t push the voice from the throat, breathe easily and hum gently. Without
changing the pitch, increase and decrease the force – this exercise also helps improve
your lung capacity.
Articulation and diction are essential to making sure your audience can understand
you – say each of the following sounds as fast as you can, repeating them for as long
as you can… in a single breath!
P F TH T S K H
Read the following out loud, making sure you
pronounce all the consonants clearly…
In Tooting, two tutors astute
Tried to toot a Duke on a flute
But duets so gruelling
End only in duelling
When tutors astute toot the flute!