TargetTalk

Due to work, I can only go to the range about 3 nights a week, so is it better to :

(1) train every Monday, Wednesday and Friday ?

or

(2) maybe train on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday ?

My question is whether it is better to train 3 times consecutively or with one day break in between ?

-wai

My feeling is that alternate days would be much better. Three consecutive days runs the risk of you getting tired / and or bored. You also then have a 4 day rest between the next sessions. In the 'off range' days you can do some non live firing practice - dry firing etc.

Rob.

It depends on what you want to train on. If you are planning to hone a particular skill or resolve a particular problem related to shooting - I would suggest continuous training till the problem is fixed. If the training is just to shoot or simulate match, then train alternate days. For mental training to improve concentration, do it daily for a small duration of time. For physical training to build endurance, train alternate days to provide sufficient time for the torn/stretched muscels to heal.

Having a consistent training scheule by fixing up the days in a week has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that it is a consistent routine. The disadvantage is that after a while it becomes monotonous and could hurt your rythm if you were to skip a day (at least for me).

Hope this information helps.

Raj

Wai:

This is a serious question - why do you need to "go to the range" to train?

Allow me to offer perhaps a modest "contrarian" view to the training issue you present.

The most effective and beneficial drills for developing proper technique do not involve "live fire" at all. Indeed, too much "live fire" will only delay your progress, as it is very difficult to isolate, identify and correct errors in many of the most basic and important aspects of technique during live fire.

Proper trigger control, alignment, and holding drills are examples of the above. All three critical techniques can be combined into dry fire against a blank surface or a surface with an aiming bullseye.

When you add the physical conditioning aspects of training, perhaps you should be going to the range weekly, or every other week- and investing the time saved into improving on the basics.

As Raj mentioned, please train EVERY DAY for modest amounts of time (15-20 minutes). Going to "the range" should be for reinforcement and diagnostics only- not training.

Your milage may vary.

Steve Swartz

Ooops sorry Raj- Raj didn't say "train every day" as I thought. The principle of having a regular schedule was the main idea.

Shorter, more frequent periods of training for the development of motor skills has been shown to be superior to infrequent, longer duration training schedules. Sorry I don't have hte cites handy but any textbook on "Kinesthetics" "Kinesthesiology" (etc- what we used to call "Physical Education back in the Dark Ages) should have the necessary informaiton on training schedules.

Actually, Yur Yev's book as well as many others (the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit manual among them) have good sections on designing a training plan.

How many times a day do you do something related to developing your technical skill?

Steve Swartz

Steve, here I have to disagree with you. I think live fire is very good. Now, I am not a know it all, however I have watched some of the most elite in shooting this past year, the USMC and the USAMU. They shoot every day for many hours and manage to turn beginning shooters into Master or HM shooters in a matter of months. So, how do you explain that?

I am not negating the fact that dry fire on a blank wall does not help, indeed it does! It has helped me a bunch. However, I also shoot 500 to 700 round of AP a week and during season I will shoot approximatly 20,000 .45 and 10,000 .22. And my scores are increasing steadily.

As far as getting tired or bored, nah, I love shooting, that is about all I live for sometimes.

NCIT

I debated for a year on buying an Electronic Trainer, alot of money. I recently bought a Rika, and kick myself for not buying one sooner. It cost me the price of a case of ammo, but I am confident that I will get more benefit from the Rika than firing the ammo. My situation my be different than yours. I have an outdoor range on my property, but do not have the luxury of a coach nor the opportunity to shoot with other competitors weekly for feedback. I have only had the Rika for a month but it is without a doubt the best investment I have made on improving my shooting.
R Severns

I also have a range on my property. But have often wondered about the RIKA. What is it, how much is it, does it really work for BE type shooting or just for air.

Thanks

The best info on the ET are http://www.centershot.com/ for the SCATT and pilkguns.com for the RIKA. They are both very similar in features and the main reason I choose the RIKA was I wanted to make a purchase from Pilkguns as a thankyou for hosting this sight. Janet Raab ownes Centershot and she is a great person also. About the cost, they will probably go down, things usually do after I buy one. I am sorry, not certain what type of shooting you refer to, but I don't think there is any discipline that would not benefit from the ET. I thought that I had a descent follow through and pretty good trigger control. Man was I wrong, the ET showed that I needed to work on this, I have and the results are positive. I am still learning how to use the information the ET is giving me.
Rod

NCIT:

BE is a different animal. I assumed in my answer that Wai was referring to training for iron sights, slow fire.

What I said about live fire for TRAINING (it is of course very beneficial for PRACTICE) only applies in BE to the slow fire strings.

Disregard what I said about live fire for the case of BE sustained fire. There is no effective way to train for BE sustained fire without live fire TRAINING (and, of course, PRACTICE also).

Yes, your scores will steadily improve with a sub-optimal mix of training vs. practice; and live vs. dry fire. A "truism" about shooting (training vs. practice) goes: "Any Trigger Time Is Loved And Wanted Trigger Time."

I also agree with that statement.

However-

depending on what your personal goals are and how old you are (no, really!) a BETTER mix of training vs. practice and dry vs. live fire might be more to your advantage.

Having been around the BE world for a while, have you not seen "Lifetime Experts" who, regardless of hours spent at the range capping rounds, never get above 90%?

The more important issue is "Are You Training, Or Just Practicing?"

As I said before- 1) just my humble opinion; and 2) Your Mileage May Vary.

Steve Swartz

depending on what your personal goals are and how old you are (no, really!) a BETTER mix of training vs. practice and dry vs. live fire might be more to your advantage.

Steve,
Your comment caught my eye. What is the relationship of age to the training/practice mix?

Fred:

All I meant was that when you are a kid, with the years stretching out ahead of you, you can afford to waste, invest, or otherwise spend your time on practicing . . . and/or "capping rounds" to build comfort level, familiarity, or "burn in" whatever techniques you might already have (good or bad).

Hey, shooting is fun!

As you get older and see the highway signs ticking by 30 . . . 35 . . . 40 . . . 45 . . .

you begin to worry a lot more about questions like "Am I getting the most bang for my buck with the time I spend on training/practice?"

While it is true that some legendary greats were/are able to shoot at the world-class level well into their 60s, it is also true that they pretty much had the whole thing figured out in their 30s!

Anyhow, I was trying to make the point that those of us who are self-coached, "true amateurs" have to make every minute count.

The original question (about going to the range) seemed to presuppose that you had to go to the range to train.

Not so- indeed, (for slow fire, iron sights) if you have a limited amount of time for training per day/week, you might be better off spending LESS time at the range (practicing), and MORE time perfecting your technique (training).

Sorry if I got carried off onto tangent-land again.

Steve Swartz

O.k. Steve,

Here goes, seeing that I consider myself to be the consumate student of others that have been there, I will give you some details and get your input...

I am just recently 29 years old. I have been shooting BE for right at 1.5 years. I have been to nationals already once and am going this year again. Last year I shot at 24 matches nationwide. I have finally settled on a load for long line and short line. I only shoot eley 10x at the long line for .22. I shoot a Marvel .22 and currently have 2 Curtis wad guns with a Marvel Custom on the way. I shot a mushy crisp trigger.

In practice I am breaking 2400 regularly.

I have been shooting AP for about 5 weeks now and am shooting consistantly in the 90's in practice and postals. Although my PTO last weekend did not go well, another story all together.

My goals, make the National AP team, win Perry as a Civilian. These of course are long term.

I can shoot whenever I want as I own my own business. I can also dryfire whenever I want. I excercise regularly and am about 5'10" 200 pounds with plenty of strength and stamina. So, that being said give me some tips, you can even PM me if you want. My ears are ready. I do have a coach for AP and BE. But like I said I am always wanting to learn and assimilate information.

Thanks in advance.

NCIT

NCIT:

1) Please email me at leslieswartz@charter.net for more in depth discussion; not sure how much interest there would be in the rest of the forum for BE training discussions. I have been where you are (started out in BE) and have some "scar tissue" to share about what helped (and, more importatnly) got in the way of going from zero to HM.

2) Overall comment- which do you want to do first, make the NT (as apparently you are too old for the NDT, the way things are being interpreted now by USAS leadership) or win Perry? My first two years shooting AP were clouded by the fact that I was still shooting BE. Yes, you can do both . . . to a point . . . but to get to where you want to go with either it is my opinion that you need to CHOOSE. There is "training spillover" but as you approach the 95% and above performance levels the curve gets steeper and it takes more focus, energy, and time to get above the (seemingly inevitable) "plateaus."

3) There is a lot of folklore, mythology, and "The Old Sarge Said" floating around in the shooting sports. A lot of things are told to new shooters by "coaches" or otherwise "helpful" people (of course, include me in that!) that either "sound good" or appeal to your current understanding of the sport(s) but are flat-out BS. Caveat Emptor. Also remember- the best shooters are not always the best coaches and vice versa.

4) Some training program questions to consider:

- Have you diagrammed or mapped out what it takes to shoot the perfect shot yet?
- Have you listed (in detail) the steps (in order) in your shot plan, and evaluated each step for how it tied directly to making the perfect shot?
- Have you clearly written out the purpose of each element of technique in such a way that you can evaluate each element based on a perfect "ideal" of performance?
- Do you measure the performance of each element of technique against this ideal; and perform training exercises to improve each element?

(an element like "Stance: align feet and body position with respect to target so that the sights naturally align in the aiming area with minimum wobble. Evaluate by performing shot plan with eyes closed- when settled, open eyes and note point of aim." Note that stance has its own subelements, like foot angle, width, torso lean, etc. etc. that each contributes in some way to achieving a perfectly settled and aligned hold with minimum wobble.)

Steve Swartz

One comment from Daryl S. when he was helping to coach the masters camp a few years ago that I attended: He stated that he could do half or more of his training at home. He spent many hours holding the AP & FP against a blank wall studying his sight alignment, not even dry firing. Another drill was to watch his sights and work the trigger finger back and forth on the trggier. Another was to hold the front sight steady, not even worrying about alignment for this drill, on a small dot on the wall.

The point is to support what Steve has suggested, you have to break the shot process down into elements and improve the elements. Then there is a huge step of incorporating the elements together. The Scatt and Rika should help. Drive time to and from the range are a part of training time.

Steve, stay on line with this discussion, it is more valueable than the which gun is better stuff!

Steve, stay on line with this discussion, it is more valueable than the which gun is better stuff!

I second that

Well, you know me, always shy and reluctant to share my thoughts . . .

To piggyback on what Pete said (referencing Darryl's comments), a good starting point for building your training plan is to "disassemble" the perfect shot into the elements and sub-elements. Let's say that "perfect sight alignment" is one of those elements.

How then do you improve your sight alignment to reach the goal of "perfect sight alignment?"

Certainly not by capping rounds. Even with an air pistol, you will lose the front sight during live fire.

A better drill is to hold the sights up against a blank surface and keep them aligned. Do this with your arm resting on a pillow- next training session do it standing as part of your shot plan.

O.K., so now you have a framework for improving your sight picture behavior- training yourself just to keep the sights aligned. Add to this framework a bullseye instead of a blank wall. This adds the separate perfect shot element of "Aim." Now you have 4 drills (align-supported-blank; align-supported-bull; align-unsupported-blank; align-unsupported-bull) that covers the elements of "Align" alone, and "Align" with "Aim."

Add the element "Trigger Control" (TC). Two types of trigger exercises here; "pumping" the trigger (without release) and "snapping" the trigger (dry fire).

O.K., now we are being to develop a training plan. We have drills for Align, Align plus Aim, and two flavors of TC which can be added to any of the four "basic" or "foundation" exercises . . . bringing us up to 12 separate exercises (in order of complexity and integration):

1) Align-blank-supported (ALIGN)
2) Align-blank-unsupported (ALIGN)
3) Align-bull-supported (ALIGN + AIM)
4) Align-bull-unsupported (ALIGN + AIM)

5) Align-blank-supported-pump (ALIGN + TC)
6) Align-blank-unsupported-pump (ALIGN + TC)
7) Align-bull-supported-pump (ALIGN + AIM + TC)
8) Align-bull-unsupported-pump (ALIGN + AIM + TC)

9) Align-blank-supported-snap (ALIGN + TC)
10) Align-blank-unsupported-snap (ALIGN + TC)
11) Align-bull-supported-snap (ALIGN + AIM + TC)
12) Align-bull-unsupported-snap (ALIGN + AIM + TC)

And this is how we train on the fundamentals- for each drill, we will have a behvior that we are specifically looking for that we can then measure- if inexactly- and track progress against. As our behaviors improve on the individual elements, either alone or in combination, we progress in our technique.

One more thing- if we

a) Are aware of the individual elements; and
2) Train specifically for behavioral improvement on the individual elements; and
iii) Measure performance against the ideal for those individual elements; and
D) Recognize where are WEAKEST BEHAVIORS ARE; then
v) We can work on the individual elements that are holding us back from achiving desired overall performance- the "constraint" to improvement.

While a-v above will take time, and progress will not be instantaneous, progress will certainly be faster than a training method that does not isolate, measure, and train to the individual elements by focusing on our weakest performance areas.

Right? Wrong?

Steve Swartz

(p.s. there are many variations ont he individual drills I mentioned; that's not important. What's important is recognizing that the [perfect shot process can be disassembled, and we must train ont eh inidividual elements with *some* kind of drill specifically aimed at that element. By going to the range, or training by dry/live firing exclusively, we will always be trying to do everything right at the same time. This is very difficult to manage improvement in this situation. Heck, I ahve a hard enough time keeping one thing straight in my head at a time, let alone everything!)

To the original poster (assuming you're still out there) I would suggest at a day or more of separation would be the best course. If you wish to read the reasons, read on. If you disagree, then OK as well.

I took up bullseye when I was fourtyish or so. When talking about and learning how to shoot it's important to learn that everyone goes through many stages along the way IF they progress to higher levels.

The reason not to go and shoot every day, even if you had the opportunity to, is because a shooter that wants to progress needs time to think themselves through each step. Why waste time shooting to get better when you can think and train yourself there faster?

First we learn about the equipment and play with physical things, then hopefully we spend some time learning how to shoot, then the rest of the days are spent on learning how to perform.

It's a lot farther from 96 to 98 at the long line than it is from 80 to 95. (Two points per string may not sound like much, but at the long line in bulleye it determines if you're running with the pack or just sittin' on the porch watchin' the world go by.)

Others on the bullseye list have heard my opinions:

Load more than you clean
Shoot more than you load
Train more than you shoot
Think more than you train
AND
Dream more than you think

Personally I think anything learned about completing the shot process to be best of our physical ability "crosses over" to any shooting sport. I don't think it takes a lot of shooting to learn how to shoot or perform, if the training is appropriate.

Why do the military team and units shoot so much? Because they can, they want to and it keeps the interest level high. But the ones that progress and get really good, do something more.

Keeping records of each and every session, goals and results, shots fired and thoughts (good and bad) separate those that progress from the eternal Experts.

I don't think I've shoot more than 15 bullseye matches in single year and I'm still working on that first sleeve of pellets from Scott a few years ago, and probably never shot more than 6,000 .22 or .45s in a single year. I've not even shot a hundred bullseye matches yet. Yes I've shot Free and Air a couple of times as well.

Anyway, the thing is that I've found that I don't have to shoot even 3 times a week (but sometimes I do). What I do is train on some part of the shot process almost every day. Live shooting is to see how the parts are coming together and gage my progress.

If we send too many shots down range, somehow I wonder if they begin to loose their value to us? Exactly what did we learn on shot number 7 or number 375 yesterday after popping all those caps?

Anyway, just some rambling thoughts.

Cecil Rhodes

Thanks for all the replies.
Perhaps I should give more background info to my question, in my country firearms ( including air weapons and even those AirSoft guns ) are heavily restricted. So it is not possible to bring any back home to train, hence all training be it live firing or dry firing must be done at the range.

Also, car ownership is severely discourage. As a result, a 20 min drive to the range is more like a one-and-a-half hour bus ride.

Furthermore, the range is used by the National Team and those guys have priority over everyone else.

Hence my main concern is to train effectively with the very limited amount of range time available.