How to Present, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 10Warm up your body and voice

If an athlete competed at a sporting event without warming up, you'd likely expect two things to happen:

• They injure themselves.
• They perform at less than their potential.

It's the same when you are presenting. Whether your presentation is online or in person, it's very important to warm up your mind through rehearsal (refer to chapter 9), and to warm up your body and voice with physical exercises and vocal warm-ups. Warm-ups do a number of things for you: they prepare your mouth and brain, they help you use your adrenaline wisely, and they help you feel ready and pumped before an event.

So let's get to work on warming up.

TIP

Michelle says,

‘Vocal warm-ups prepare your mouth and brain, help use up your adrenaline wisely, and help you feel ready and pumped before an event.'

Warm up your body

Your voice and your ability to convey confidence is a reflection of your entire physical and mental being. Did you realise that tension in your body restricts your ability to use your voice effectively and can make you look and feel very nervous? Conversely, feeling nervous is very difficult when your body is relaxed. The way you relax your body is to warm it up!

You can do some wonderful exercises to warm up your body, including the ones I've included in the following sections.

Stretch

If you stretch out your limbs, you will find you feel loose and ready for anything. I'm a Soprano 2 in a women's choir and we do this every time before ...