Finger Strength

After playing for a while you may notice that your finger just wear out. If you practice a lot you may have already over come this stage of guitar playing but if your learning fast then you may be still experiencing finger and hand pains after playing a few minutes. An easy way to overcome these pains is to practice more in short burst or start using finger exercise on top of your practicing sessions. These exercises are strictly for physical exercise, musically they sound horrible and if you try to make this into songs.... just be careful.

Scales

The best way to learn theory and get in some good finger exercise time is to play scales up and down the neck over and over. Maybe start with the major scales and play them across the neck starting at the 12^th fret and then working your way down to the first fret. The ultimate goal should be being able to play the scales starting on the 1^st fret easily for about 5 minutes or more. The lower frets are spaced farther away so you may want to start up higher and work your way down. Don't forget you can be learning your scales at the same time while your doing this.

Staircase Exercise

This is a popular John Petrucci riff that can take you a long way. This exercise include making a staircase looking chord shape and playing the individual notes, then inverting the shape and playing it backwards. Start at the 9^th fret, place a finger on E string 9^th fret - A string 10^th fret, D string 11^th fret, and the G string 12^th fret. Pluck each string from the E string to the G string. Then switch the chord shape so that your pinky is on the E string and your index is one the G string and play the individual string from the G string to the E string. After you do this move the whole shape down a fret and do the whole exercise again.

The big key to making this exercise worth while is to try and play the notes as evenly spaced as possible. If you are having troubles making each shape it might be easier if you start playing the first note of the shape before you get the whole shape fretted, it's a way of rushing your fret hand by not stopping your pick hand.

Chromatic exercises

Another great way to gain finger strength is to practice the chromatic scale up and down. Start out slow at a reasonable pace and then slowly pick up speed as you get comfortable with the exercise. This will help you to gain accuracy and keep both your hands synched up with each other.