Academy 9 - Transformation 13 - Strength Training
Ok girls…
Pick up your weights and give me 10 deadlifts with 132 pounds / 60kg.
Sorry girls, I was just having a little bit of fun with you! We’re going to be working on strength training today but what we’re focusing on is your voice.
You’ve already started training your voice and as well as working to give it a more feminine sound, we need to look into how we warm it up and how we strengthen it.
Warm ups
You wouldn’t exercise without warming up and using your voice is surprisingly similar. Both rely on the use of muscles and you want to get the blood flowing and the muscles warm and loose before using them.
The first thing to do is sit down and have your mouth in its regular position. Then using your hands, slowly massage the muscles on either side of your jaw. Do it in a circular motion and spend 1-2 minutes on them, reversing the direction halfway through.
Next up, start to move your tongue. Move it backwards and forwards in your mouth, fold it as far back as you can and then stick it out of your mouth. Do this 10 times in a row.
Once that’s done, take a deep breath and work to blow it out in five equal parts. Pretend there’s a candle in front of you that keeps relighting. You need to exhale 5 times, with equal strength each time, from the same breath.
Finally, take a deep breath and work through the vowel noises “maaaaa, mayyyy, meeeee, mowwww, mooooo”. Your stomach should tighten when you say each one, work through them 10 times.
Getting stronger
Now you’re warmed up, you can start on the exercises! These may feel or sound silly and you may be tempted to skip them, but the benefits they will have are huge. Strengthening your voice lets you work it more and gives you more control over it. Even your regular day to day voice will noticeably improve if you stick with these.
Make sure you’re holding a good posture with your shoulders relaxed and chest broad so you can breathe easily.
To begin with, you need to hum. Start saying “mmmmmmmm” and change it until you find the tone that makes your face vibrate (lightly touch your lips and you’ll feel it). When you find the right tone, spend one breath mmmmmmmmm’ing, then take another breath and say “hmmmmmmmm”. Repeat this cycle five times.
Next we’ll work on your articulation, do a search for tongue twisters and pick out 5 you like. Select one to start with and say it slowly and clearly. Then repeat it a little faster and then faster still. If you stumble or become unclear, then slow down a little but keep saying it. After you’ve spent a minute doing one, move onto the next one.
Finally, read something out loud. This can be anything, but spend a minute or two reading a page from a book or even something as simple as a random Wikipedia entry out loud. Speak slowly, evenly and clearly.
Practice
Unlike your feminisation vocal exercises, these can be done every day. You can do the warm up and not the strengthening if you’re short on time but don’t strengthen unless you’ve warmed up!
If you’re looking to increase the time you spend on your feminine vocal practice, then you need to be strict and warm up and strengthen often. This will benefit you a lot, not only will you be able to spend more time practicing but once you’re comfortable with your voice, it will become much easier to hold it without straining.
You should aim to add a vocal warm up to your morning routine at least 5 days a week, strengthening is optional, but you should be able to fit it in at least twice.
Going forward, anytime you’re going to practice a feminine voice, you need to warm up first. Even if you’ve already done it earlier in the day, you can repeat it before you get to your exercises.
We’ll have another letter on your voice later in the module, so get to work making what you have stronger and we’ll pick this up again soon!
