You'll be amazed at how this sequence helps. Something about short bursts that really build up the speed.

FASTER FASTER WHERES THE DOWNSTROKES IVE BEEN AFTER FASTER FASTER

Day 10 of down pick playing I can feel the power of YEAH in me

Nobody: James Hetfield: "I just got riff ideas"

“Everything should be played with a downstroke” - Johnny Ramone

Started out building up from 70 BPM, 1 unit at a time. During the first 2 weeks I couldn't really get past 85 BPM comfortably. Now by the end of the third week, after a few days of rest I can do around 95 BPM. Persistence is key. Don't give up, anyone can do it

This man just exposed James Hetfield’s downpicking secrets

Finally after 3 or 4 weeks I was able to finish the exercise. When I started I could only do until 85 bpm properly. From 85 to 100 bpm in a month was impressive to me.

Am I the only one who literally goes back to this video every single day to practice w/Mike?

James Hetfield is proud of us

For anyone struggling with downpicking, this lesson is fantastic. Been doing it every day for a few months and my downpicking has vastly improved, so much that I can play everything I wanted to play while downstroking. 10/10

At the beginning you accidentally created the domination breakdown

85bpm is where it starts to hurt. I need a lot more practice a guess 2 year update. I can go up to around 140 to 160ish before my arm can't take it. I can play creeping death now so that's cool. This exercise does work but I really would do it 2 times a day everyday if you can. You'll get up to speed in to time. Good stuff

why am i watching this? my electric guitar does not have strings

Imagine if at the end of last round there was a china cymbal going *ting* and this turned into brutal breakdown

Dude, I cannot thank you enough for this video; my downstrokes have gone through the roof. At the start, I was struggling to break 90BPM (starting at 60); just broke 100BPM really comfortable today, i've nailed Creeping Death and Through the Never and I'm close to getting Master of Puppets. Thanks so much man; amazing content.

44 seconds that is the fastest i've ever been

1: easy 2: why am I even doing this 3: boring 4: not bad 5: this is actually pretty cool 6: nice 7: ok this is getting out of hand 8: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

needed this. Cant get anywhere near the speed in the recording of master of puppets or some riffs of KEA

Hey man. If you're having a bad day, you can remember how much you helped me and countless others, find their sound.

Am I the only one who came here cause need help to play master of puppets or blackened?

On day two and I already have noticeable improvement in master of puppets. Nothing crazy but I’m getting there, thanks!

5:36 - You don't care about how I feel, I don't feel it anymore, - (SOAD-ATWA)

I've been practicing this exercise since October and finally just hit 100!! Thank you for this!

Perfect timing with this one. Been having trouble with my picking wrist lately. I had two surgeries on it, both times I had a cyst removed. Really shows when downpicking. Lately I’ve just been getting slower.

You're an amazing teacher. I find all of videos to be just what I need. Much appreciated!

I love down picking to the point that I do it 90% of the time. I just love the percussive aspect of it. Great job Obi-Wan!

Do this with upstrokes as well! you'd be surprised at how much your alternate picking, up sweeps, etc. improve if you start isolating upstrokes, just like downstrokes. Not many people seem to do it, Paul Gilbert has a great video on it though.

Been doing this exercise everyday for two weeks and I can do 100bpm without my arm falling off! Shit works

Yooooooo, I’ve been doing this for not even a week and I’m starting to see improvement! Thanks so much!

Thank you for everything you upload, I have been playing for 13 years but I always had "dumb hands." Your videos have inspired vast improvement over the past month. One love, rock on! ❤️

Works greatly!! I started from no more than 75 bpm 10 days ago and now I am up to 95!! I am still not sure how I will go faster than that, I might remove the psycological limit first :) thanks Man! you rock! getting close to play the bridge in Seek and Destroy..

Dude your videos rock and you upload consistently which is great! I've been playing 15 years and am going back to the basics to learn the right way. Keep it up!

I've really been enjoying these "back-to-basics slow-it-down" videos. It's something I really ignored when I was a beginner. Nice job, and I'm loving your new guitar!

5:10 Raining Blood 😂😂

Day one first play through: Got through 85 well, struggled with 90 onward. Lets go boys.

perfect timing for me. I've been practicing downstrokes for the past weeks

Not getting too tense is where almost all my guitar problems are. This really helped me and had to add it to my guitar playlist. Great lesson. \m/

its almost 2 weeks and i already feel like it helped a lot. thank you!

you make it fun and motivate to practice. I do like your videos a lot. You are learning and improving yourself all the time.

this channel needs more subscriber. it helps me a lot! thanks dude, keep going! 🤘

When you play 3 downstrokes per beat, it reminds me breakdown from Pantera - Domination.

Damn this really works not only angling the pick backwards like you said but almost bouncing it off the string rather than picking it down... Thanks for the lesson. Love the channel.

Works like a charm in a week! Huge thank you!

I've been looking for a lesson on straight downpicking for speed and stamina for quite a while. Thank you!

Started practicing with this basically the day it was uploaded. 95 bpm was my hard barrier right from the start. Almost ended up thinking I'm lacking natural ability to do this any faster. Today I played it all the way through 100bpm cleanly three times in a row. Thanks for the motivational and useful video! A tip from me: I've been practicing Am I Demon by Danzig in tandem with this, it really tests your endurance.

I’ve been looking for a good picking exercise to improve my downpicking speed and I just found it! Thanks man!!

Can’t find the one person that posted time stamps so here: 70bpm- 0:56 75 bpm- 2:11 80bpm- 3:09 85bpm- 4:03 90bpm- 5:02 95bpm- 5:49 100bpm: - 6:43

It's working like MAGIC. I've always had an issue with dowpicking because I tend to move my entire forearm as the speed goes up, but with this exercise and with practicing a lot of fast downpicking songs I'm controlling the hand much better. Thank you so much!

Hey, I don’t know if you’ll see this but I just wanted to say thanks, this is insanely helpful! Learning to play “Make me wanna die” by The Pretty Reckless and after just ONE DAY of practicing this, I got it down. Seriously, so grateful for this!🙏🏼

This is a great routine... I doubted it at first, but can feel myself getting slightly faster/better at this everyday. Nice work, thanks for a top video!

This is really fun and useful. I'm saving it. Thanks!

This was great! Thank you so much Mike!!

i love the simplicity and effectiveness of this exercise so much

My downpicking has already improved drastically when I get sore I have a break and when I come back I’m a bit faster! Thanks man 👍

Lol. This is timely, only yesterday I started practicing downstrokes in a timing cause I wanted to play valhall awaits me by Amon amarth. It is around 95bpm. I had to trem to keep it up. But trem didn't have the right feel. When I tried to strike with only downs, but couldn't keep up. I had to go to 75 to be comfy. But when I practised, I did it without the build up you use... I only did all 16th notes right away. Thanks

amazing exercise, exactly what I was looking for. cheers!

I've been doing this for about two weeks now, I'm only a year into guitar and I'm already seeing progress thank you so much

Awesome video!!

Using this every day now. Thank you 🤘🏻

Thank you bro! I’ve been doing this exercise for only 2 days and now can finally get the speed I need for master of puppets and a bunch of other fast songs that require downpicking

The exercise at 100 and above may as well be a neat intro/work up in an actual song

Day 5 - January 29th - 90BPM Day 6 - January 31st - 90BPM Steady, managed 95BPM, can play the creeping death intro Day 7 - February 1st, 90BPM, managed to do 95BPM once without having a hard time. I am now adding another thing to this routine, I normally run through it 4 times before practice and 4 times after practice, after each time I do a run, Ill play the creeping death intro before repeating Days 8,9 & 10 - February 2nd/ 3rd/5th - did the exercise but forgot to comment speed:( Day 11 - February 8th - couldn't practice in the last 2 days, so I was set back a bit, at 90BPM

Awesome man!!!

been doing this for a few weeks now and i’m almost at 100 bpm! haven’t even been consistently watching this vid but even once in a while it helps a lot

Honestly this exercise is great! There is a billion alternate picking exercises, but almost no down picking ones. I really like how you get progressively less rest, it actually makes me pick so much faster than my usual "pick as fast as you can until your entire arm locks up and wait until you can pick again and do it again". I've been playing most of my life, this is the best way to warm up the beat up tendons in my right hand. Thanks so much for posting!

Thank you for making this video, I wanted to find a way to get really fast downstrokes and this is it.

Finally did all of them clean! I did watch the whole ad for a break for 100 tho good placement for that btw

I’ve found this to work amazingly, but the real takeaway is that it works with other types of fast playing, like shredding (2,3,5) on one string, and tremolo picking. Trying those once every four beats, then twice, etc. etc. It’s helped me immensely thanks dude!

2:11 75 BPM 3:08 80 BPM 4:01 85 BPM 5:02 90 BPM 5:49 95 BPM 6:43 100 BPM

Awesome. I've been recently trying to speed up my downstrokes. I had only realized how slow I was a few days ago. Lol. This will help a ton.

I’m know I didn’t invent this but I took your principle of strumming where you keep your arm moving up and down in a steady motion And applied it to my down picking as an exercise. I’ve been doing basically what you did in this video here but then I’ll throw in an upstroke for a triplet every so often, then a series of five or seven, etc. It has really helped tighten up my picking.

you're an awesome teacher. thank you

Wow really good method to improve downstrocke, thanks man.

Started doing this drill lil over a week ago. I struggled at 85. Im keeping up with 95 pretty well at this point. Great vid. Very helpful

Can't wait to start practicing this. I struggle really back with down picking.

Thanks for this video. It really helped me a lot.

I know it’s not the aim of the of video but this really helped me drill alternate picking as well.... great video!!

Such a good practice 🔥Thanks!!

I go right into fast part of Sanitarium every time I finish 8 :D

Nice exercise! Looking forward to doing for a few days to see some results.

Great teaching. I semi self-taught and I was able to get down on Floyds Run Like Hell on acoustic and I didn't know I was playing a double reverb and a second part at once. I was trying way too hard to accomplish the sound I wanted to get to.

7:12 if you speed this up to 2x speed you get Metallica's four horsemen and disposable heroes

this video is a lightbulb moment to me, thanks man

Cool video, it always feels like an Intro building up :x

I enjoy your teaching .if only I had that kind of instruction as a fledgling guitar player.thank you for sharing your talent

I did this exercise the whole year and I did notice quite a big improvement. I have gotten better at how fast I can play but I feel like I've gotten even better at the "quality" of my downstrokes. My downstrokes are much more precise, efficient and clean than they were before. The exercise has also helped me maintain these qualities as well as speed. My limit is 95 to 100 bpm, the most I was able to do was 105 (barely) and I don't feel like I can do any more than that. For like 2 months or something I feel like I've hit a plateau where I don't really see any more improvement other than what I’ve already mentioned. I’m not sure why but I have some ideas, the main one being that I believe I just have to get myself to try and play higher bpm’s. I’ve kept myself mostly with the maximum of 100 bpm, maybe I need to up this and get myself out of my comfort zone. Thank you for this exercise.

Another tip for people who are tensing up. Think about each strum as a set of 4 rather than single strokes. Your brain can process it easier and it will cause you not to tense so much. So instead of 1 1 1 1, think of it as 1 2 3 4. Put emphasis on the 1 and the other 3 will come naturally.

I started playing this yesterday and now i can play eye of the beholder with downpicks only, thanks man, this video was a great help for me

Mike thank you sm for your videos, if it weren't for you I'd have no idea how to practice efficiently or even play things the right way

5.5 weeks of playing guitar here - I got to 95 and stumbled on the 6s, 7s, and 8s. 100 and up seems impossible. Thanks for this exercise, and your lessons in general. I've learned a lot from you!

Thank you:). This actually really helped

Will definitely try!

Great vid!

The relaxing part was hardest part for me. My problem was try to force it to go faster. Great video!

Man, I am so grateful to you, my speed just for two weeks is exploded, it is crazy

Mike. You're Awesome. Thank you. 🎸👍

Going to add this to my daily routine!

Like the way you explain in laymens terms! Good for beginners! Thanks for what you do.....

Slightly irrelevant but can I just say I love the background of your videos? It has such a soothing, old school aesthetic