New to Java

Sorry , it may sound a stupid question.

I don't know much about JVM to understand the operation behind this..

I have around 40 methods that increment different variables

public void incrementA() {
synchronized(this){
a ++ ; 
// ++ a ;  Possibly this is  the fasttest
// a = a +1 ;
}

}

I believe i = i +1 would definately be slower as this would be addition instruction

++i sounds faster to me as it is a preincrement operator
Step:
increment i value by 1
return i

i ++ may be slower
Step:
get value of i into temp
increment value of i by 1
return temp

May be i faltered at some places... Please correct me and guide me on this .. that which would be the faster of them all ??

Thanks