Alternate Picking Question.
 

Well I have currenly gotten back into playing guitar and have been learning some Lamb of God songs, my problem is I have a bad habbit of being to comfortable using only down strokes, to correct this problem I have been playing the songs using alternate picking and practicing to a metronome. I can do most of the songs at about 80 bpm and was wondering is this is the proper way to break in alternate picking habbit. The songs range from 120-160 bpm, my plan is to gain about 2 bpm a week as I develop.

Anyways does this sound like a good way of developing a great base for alternate picking and metal playing in general? Open to suggestion.

sure, learn some suffocation while your at it. That will help a lot.

Just know the motion of picking for alternate picking. Speed and ease comes from keeping your arm like a machine... locked down. Plus if you're a good downpicker, triplets should come quite easy... start with a down, end with a down.

I can do triplets and galloping. I took guitar lessons from a guitar instructor for about 3 months and he did teach me alternate picking just never tought me how to control it with different time sigs, just go a million miles an hour with alternate picking. So i'm starting at ground level and trying to break that habbit.

I have a habit where I economy pick everything...but that's kind of a good habit...you just gotta pay more attention to cleaning up your technique sometimes.

I'm just now to the point where I can comfortably pick everything alternate. I went from alternative to learning alternate to learning to play everything alternate. Now its just second nature. I play everything alternate unless I'm strumming or sweeping or playing 2 notes on the same fret on 2 adjacent string like rolling my finger.

I'd say if you want to learn or get out of the habit of only down stroke, play everything alternate.

Its comes natural to me also. When i first got into metal I was way into metalcore and stuff. There is tons of that stuff in metalcore/deathcore. Necrophagist stuff is pretty good practice.