Dry firing

[TwoLegPete]

I've been lurking around this forum for a while, and well... here's my first post:

Maybe I'll introduce myself first: I'm a fairly new shooter, I started about 8 months ago, mainly with a .38 revolver and a .45 pistol (M1911) who belong to a friend. Due to our gun-laws here (Germany), I'm not yet permitted to own a "real" gun (there's a one-year waiting period). As I couldn't always use my friend's guns, I bought an air-pistol (Feinwerkbau LP65) so as to have something to "play" with.

Guess what? I really came to like AP a lot! I'm spending more and more time with the AP and less time with the big guns. I've recently upgraded to a Feinwerkbau LP100 and I'm smitten! As there is no coach in my club (mostly recreational both-handed big-bore shooting) and no other (serious) AP-shooters, I've coached myself with the help of books and the internet (forums, articles, videos...) and I've now reached a level of about 340 to 350 (out of 40 shots). I have found that apart from studying the proper shooting techniques (stance, breathing, sight-alignement, shooting cycle...), dry firing/aiming excercises have helped me a lot.

So here are my questions:
* how do you get the most out of your dry firing excercises?
* what's the best way to excercise? holding against a white wall? aiming at a downsized target?
* should I carry out complete shooting cycles (and pull the trigger) or should trigger training be done seperately?

I have about 30min per day (sometimes more) that I can devote to AP-training, and I would like to use them as effectively as possible. I'd really apreciate if you could give me some advice or share your training routines with me.

Thank you!

Peter

[Alexander]

Heena Sidhu shot herself from zilch into the Indian national team in one year, and to the world top in two years overall, by just one hour of training during 4-5 days a week, so it is possible in air pistol :-). Though of course it is a question of talent and potential.

The gun _can_ make a big difference, as I found out when once changing from a Feinwerkbau 65 to a P 44. Amazing. But the foreign environment and the electronic targets may also have contributed on making me shoot much more concentrated then.

[lastman]

The answer you're looking for is efficiency.

If you use the 30 mins as a firm guide line to structure your sessions with it will look roughly as follows.

Warm up: 10 mins
Skill development: 15 mins
Cool down: 5 mins

Don't ever be fooled into thinking that a warm up is not important. In fact it is the MOST important part. Use the 10 mins to warm up your body so it is ready to learn when you start your development.

Do not stretch during your warm-up. It will loosen your muscles and promote flexibility... the last thing you want. Perform some lifting exercises with your pistol (raising up and down), get your finger used to moving under control (press to overload slowly for 5 secs and release slowly for 5 secs), warm up your eyes (again very important[shift your focus from back sight to front sight to aiming manrk and back].)

In the skill section you should focus on particular aspects of your shot and assess how you performed each time. Dry firing, Dry rehersal (i.e shooting a shot without a cocked trigger) and holding are all good vehicles for this.

You cool down will help you stay fresh because your training session must be conducted at maximum effort i.e you shoot as if it is for your life every time. Opposite hand training and other such things are good for this.

One thing you must remeber when training like this is that it must be very well planned as you have no spare time and you must be consistent.

Good luck

[2650 Plus]

Do you hae a clear understanding of zero hold with the pistol? let me explain that this is when there is a balanced relationship between the muscles that exists when you raise the pistol to the seeing line. This often changes from day to day depending on your activity prior to arriving on the shooting stand. This is the one time when you should do moderate streaching until this muscle ballance returns to the same place every time you shoot. Good Shooting Bill Horton { Gold level shooter with the Baumholder shooting verien Back in 1878 ]

[TwoLegPete]

Thank you for your answers so far.

lastman:

I'm currently only doing warm-up excercises when I'm doing an extended training session. But I guess you are right about this - your joints and muscles should be smooth and warm, you should have enough blood running through your body to provide your muscles with oxygen and whatever else they need, and your mind should be in an activated state as well. I will include warm-up in my dry-firing routine...

I don't really know, but stretching seems to be a controversial issue. One of my (German) books, written by a former national women's pistol champion and national coach, advocates moderate stretching before training and matches... my first thought was also that this could be counterproductive... as I don't have the time to do stretching excercises in my 30-min routine, it's not really an issue for me at the moment.

2650 Plus:

is "zero hold" the same as "natural point of aim"? Shouldn't this be corrected by changing your stance? could you elaborate on this a bit more?

There's one more question:

when I hold the gun against a white wall, I can hold it quite steadyly without too much strain. If I slowly lower it through the bulls-eye, two things happen: I either lower it to fast, with the result that I have to rise the pistol again (for about 2 or 3 rings) or, when I lower it really slow, things get a bit shaky and I have trouble stabilizing the sights within the aiming area before the oxygen level drops too low (and things get shaky again).

Can you recommend an excercise for this problem?

Thank you,

Peter

[lastman]

Hi Pete. To me stretching is an easy one. The idea of it is to promote flexibility in your joints and your muscles... Put simply help them move more. Any way, to each their own I guess.

A couple of things to look at with lowering your pistol.

Firstly, you will never be able to stop from shaking. You will also be surprised how small that movement actually is. My best advice is ignore it and continue with your shot. You will stabilize naturally once your in your area for a couple of seconds.

However if you want to focus on it. My best advice is to make sure thay your body, grip and head position are all set prior to raising your pistol. The movement can cause your to wobble a bit.

[2650 Plus]

I apologise for being unclear . My German shooting companions refered the natural point of aim as the "zero hold" and line of sight as the seeing line. Also your natural point of aim as relating to yoour foot position changes from day to day depending on what you have been doing prior to going to the range. If you only correct by moving your feet both sight allignment and even the grip may ha ve to be adjusted to correct the muscle tension imballance, Sorry about that. Good Shooting Bill Horton

[RobStubbs]

Stretching is an essential part of the warming up process. Muscles stretch during use, stretching them before shooting sort of acts like doing the process ahead of times and not letting them slowly stretch throughout a shoot. It also goes in with the warm up in so far as helping to prevent injury. You just need to carefully select both the warm up and stretching exercises.

Rob.

[Guest]

Stretching is an essential part of the warming up process. Muscles stretch during use, stretching them before shooting sort of acts like doing the process ahead of times and not letting them slowly stretch throughout a shoot. It also goes in with the warm up in so far as helping to prevent injury. You just need to carefully select both the warm up and stretching exercises.

Rob.

Its an interesting point and we're moving off the point. It should probably have its own topic but this will do.

I see what your saying and if we were competing in a motion based sport I'd agree with you. When you are moving your muscles they will loosen. although in pistol shooting your not really moving them, rather placing a load on them. The result is like under weight training the tense. Loose muscles take longer to tense and make your hold more stable.

The other down side to stretching is that your taking away muscle memory. Which is built up from the new muscles and the connections between muscles that are formed from holding. It's not a lot but it will certainly make your hold a bit bigger (i tested on a scatt and my hold went from 9.7 to 9.5 after stretching.) This is the same as getting a massage... except the massage is so much more devastating to your hold.

But as I said to each their own. Stretching is an important part of physical training but should be monitored.

[lastman]

That was me in the last post