TargetTalk

Hello,

I'm having a bit of trouble at maintaining endurance through out the match.

The first series are roughly grouped together with the occasional flyer, but as I progress along the match the remaining series tend to be scattered...

I believe this can be attributed to match stress or bat time management ( I tend to shoot a ten shot series in 10 or less minutes).

Any suggestions on this subject?

TQB

Ok can you give some more info, what type of shooting? Your experience level and age? How often your train, and how often you shoot matches? And do you keep score/scope shots each series?

I'm refering to 10 meter Air Pistol.

I'm 31 years old, I train about 2 to 3 times a week, but I have been trying to do dry fire every day for 10 minutes with 40 second holds and 20 seconds rest.

My average is 530 with a top score of 540 in a official match.

I have started with a Pardini K10 since July of 2012.
Since then I've entered in 6 or 7 official matches.

Thank You.

40 second hold seem quite long. It may be an issue. How often do you abort shots if you are holding for 40 seconds? Do you think holding too long may cause you to try harder to break a shot at the end of your hold instead of aborting?

Daryl Szarenski gave me some insight into his training.

He said when he first joined AMU (Army Marksmanship Unit), his training for first two months, 8 to 5, every day was just holding practice. He was not allowed to fire a single shot during those two months. Just holding practice. He would put a piece of stick pad paper with a small dot, a few inches away from his muzzle, and just hold pistol to that point until he could not hold any more. .Building up those shoulder muscles stamina and getting natural point of aim to become just an afterthought. Over and over for TWO months.

Now a day, his favorite drill is to just like the above holding practice on a paper dot, but add trigger pull. He would full as fast as he can pull without disturbing sight alignment. If he felt like his alignment is disturbed by his fast trigger, he would slow down until they are not disturbed. Otherwise, he would just pull as FAST, and as smoothly as he can.

He said during London Olympic, he does not have access to shooting range every day. This holding/ fast trigger pulling exercise is all he does in the Olympic Village.

His training is simple and quite effective. If it is good enough for him, I think it is good enough for you.

Happy training. [/code]

My 40 second hold is part of a holding training.

I lift the gun to target height, using a dot on the wall just 30 cm away, and try to dry fire while aligning the sights in the first 7 to 10 seconds. The remaining time until the 40 seconds I just try to keep the sights aligned and level with the dot.

From 7 minutes onward the hold is quite hard, and wobbling if frequent.

I guess more training is in order....

Maybe with more time awarded to dry fire. 20 minutes sessions, perhaps?

When live firing, I seldomely abort a shoot. I know that it's wrong, and that I should abort if something seems wrong.

I guess I should be more demanding about my shoots only firing if every seems to be perfect.

But then again… it will neever be…

Why don't you do your training in sitting position, just like the old Russian coach Anatoly suggested.

I find training sitting down gives me more " bang for the buck ( or time)" for the time I put in training. Less wobble, and you can really concentrate on what a perfect sight picture look like. Develop a quick, smooth trigger pull without disturbing that perfect sight picture.

You can do all that training standing up, but I think "it" will come sooner if you train sitting down.

It sounds to me like you need more repetitions with a shorter hold time. You are exercising the right muscles, but in a manner that is very different from what you will encounter actually shooting. If you are getting wobbly from over working the muscles, you can't train the fine motor control required for a stable hold. I would experiment with a reduced hold time until you can do 70 or 80 holds without getting muscle tremor. Do that until you can increase your hold time.

Ok I will try 15 second holds with a 10 seconds rest between holds.

seamaster wrote:Daryl Szarenski gave me some insight into his it is training.

He said when he first joined AMU (Army Marksmanship Unit), his training for first two months, 8 to 5, every day was just holding practice. He was not allowed to fire a single shot during those two months. Just holding practice. He would put a piece of stick pad paper with a small dot, a few inches away from his muzzle, and just hold pistol to that point until he could not hold any more. .Building up those shoulder muscles stamina and getting natural point of aim to become just an afterthought. Over and over for TWO months.

Interestingly, Brian Zins is very much opposed to any holding drills conducted WITHOUT pulling the trigger. Nevertheless, I do not want to dispute the drill's merits, but while it might sound like a good idea for professional shooters, I doubt one would be able to sustain much interest in it for a long time. If you are like most of us with a day job and family, and have an hour here or there, you would benefit more from an hour of dry firing. It is also less boring, IMO.

By the way, some Olympic champions and world record holders do not even dry fire much less hold until your arm is numb, risking injury, especially when one is no longer 20 years of age. They claim the fun part of shooting is more important:

What's your most valuable practice drill? What do you do for training do you dry fire or shoot, or point at a wall?
I never shoot dry fire. I have a fitness program and then I shoot with bullets, but I make a big mix. Sometimes I shot free pistol, sometimes air pistol, sometimes sport pistol, big bore. All of them are good for shooting. Shooting and training free pistol is good for holding, and shooting with big bore pistol is good for holding the pistol for the recoil, and so on, so I make it mixed.

http://www.pilkguns.com/intmn.shtml