Stamina training and match pacing

Houngan · Post by **Houngan** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 12:54 pm

I shot again last night, for the first ten shots I was able to hold the ten, nearly, with one flier. At this point I'm going to work solely on stamina and not worry about anything else, if I can capture those first ten shots through an entire sixty, then I'll have something.

Isabel1130 · Post by **Isabel1130** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 1:09 pm

Houngan wrote:I shot again last night, for the first ten shots I was able to hold the ten, nearly, with one flier. At this point I'm going to work solely on stamina and not worry about anything else, if I can capture those first ten shots through an entire sixty, then I'll have something.

Yes, but let me suggest something that may have been mentioned earlier. Self analysis, is really important to shooters, and it is important not to lose sight of the fact that you build a good score, one shot at a time.

To figure out what goes wrong in your shot process, when you are tired, you need to understand what is going right, when you are not tired.
Filming yourself, or shooting on a computerized system that will help identify unconcious errors you make when you are tired, may help.

Do you know what caused the flier? Can you call your shots?

Houngan · Post by **Houngan** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 1:32 pm

Isabel1130 wrote:
Houngan wrote:I shot again last night, for the first ten shots I was able to hold the ten, nearly, with one flier. At this point I'm going to work solely on stamina and not worry about anything else, if I can capture those first ten shots through an entire sixty, then I'll have something.
Yes, but let me suggest something that may have been mentioned earlier. Self analysis, is really important to shooters, and it is important not to lose sight of the fact that you build a good score, one shot at a time.

To figure out what goes wrong in your shot process, when you are tired, you need to understand what is going right, when you are not tired.
Filming yourself, or shooting on a computerized system that will help identify unconcious errors you make when you are tired, may help.

Do you know what caused the flier? Can you call your shots?

Yes, I'm an accomplished practical shooter so I actually have pretty good trigger control and the ability to call shots. I had bad tennis elbow for the last three years so I had to put the air pistol down, but after surgery I'm picking it back up. My failures are usually of the twitch type, when I start getting tired my muscles get jumpy, usually in the vertical plane. Part of that is stamina and part of it is still not having the mental fortitude to cancel the shot every time I should.

It's fair to say that my general shooting skills are very advanced, but my Olympic shooting skills are those of a novice. I'm trying to solicit advice about the things that are unique to 10m shooting moreso than developing as a new shooter in all respects.

Houngan · Post by **Houngan** » Wed Dec 26, 2012 8:32 pm

A-ha. I hope this doesn't turn out to be a "tip of the day" scenario, but I seem to have figured something out. By extending and firming my arm while preparing to shoot (on the exhale before the lift inhale) suddenly everything was twice as stable. I figured this out after the top left target was shot:

That's six shots in the top group of the bottom target, one perfect double and two scratch doubles.

Of course after I got excited I threw two away, then one more to make an seven-shot group of 10mm:

the important thing is this: I called everything exactly, and my fatigue was half or less of my usual routine. I shot all of the last twenty shots slowly but without a significant break and felt no real problems; usually I'm breaking down after six or seven shots. Thoughts?

Isabel1130 · Post by **Isabel1130** » Wed Dec 26, 2012 8:49 pm

How much did you dry fire before you started shooting live? Sometimes we start shooting better because we are warmed up, and our trigger finger is moving more freely.
Learning how to keep your arm and wrist firm, without over gripping the gun at the same time is one of the real keys to precision shooting.

Houngan · Post by **Houngan** » Wed Dec 26, 2012 9:03 pm

Isabel1130 wrote:How much did you dry fire before you started shooting live? Sometimes we start shooting better because we are warmed up, and our trigger finger is moving more freely.
Learning how to keep your arm and wrist firm, without over gripping the gun at the same time is one of the real keys to precision shooting.

Great question, but I was actually getting tired when I "discovered" this. I already had 25 or so downrange, which is about my limit these days. I had a really good target earlier in the session that I saved:

I was pretty proud of that, but after finding the stability method it looks ragged. As you say, it may just be getting warmed up and that's why I hope it isn't "tip of the day" syndrome.

Houngan · Post by **Houngan** » Fri Dec 28, 2012 11:33 pm

I did some more shooting and analysis, I think I'm fighting the grip. If I set definite points on the three axes of the grip, my wobble goes away. I have a Rink on the way, here's hoping it works better than my homebrew.