Practicing versus training

[valerie-k]

I shoot air rifle 40
I haven been shooting for about 8years now.I won the national title and have been competing internationaly for 4 years.In Belgium we have very few coaches.So we have to learn a lot by ourself.Since i found this site i noticed that instead of training i have been "practicing" a lot.
I have read that i have to isolate individual elements of my technique and train those individual elements.
Could you tell me how you train,and what different elements you use?

[Five-seveN]

You didnt say exactly what you shoot, so the specifics may be a little off, but you get it. Basically if I have been out of practice for a while, I shoot a 3x10 and make mental and physical notes of what went wrong, or what I could improve, looking very closely at my mental processes, between shot routine, and position. this gives something to focus on next practice session, and so on.

[Guest]

I shoot air rifle 40 standing
I haven been shooting for about 8years now.I won the national title and have been competing internationaly for 4 years.In Belgium we have very few coaches.So we have to learn a lot by ourself.Since i found this site i noticed that instead of training i have been "practicing" a lot.
I have read that i have to isolate individual elements of my technique and train those individual elements.
Could you tell me how you train,and what different elements you use?

[RobStubbs]

Valerie,
I'm a pistol shooter but the training specifics are pretty similar. What you need to do is isolate each aspect of shooting the rifle (or pistol) and focus on that and train those aspects. So for example think of trigger release. Train perfect trigger release - from dry firing blank wall, live firing blank target etc. You can add in extra components such as foresight movement - or concentrating on keeping it still i.e. smooth shot release and good follow through. All of this can be done dry, live and plain and 'proper' target.

I have to add that I'm not great on these aspects myself and still trying to workout what to do but at a higher level work on specific elements in isolation and build up. You may find some books useful but the only rifle one i know of is 'ways of the rifle, by Chris Fordham' <I think>.

One other aspect you may want to consider is the mental approach and ensuring you have that completely sorted. I have seen shooters perform well in matches only to collapse in the all important finals. I presume they weren't mentally solid enough to carry on their performance and let the pressure affect them.

Rob.

[RobStubbs]

You didnt say exactly what you shoot, so the specifics may be a little off, but you get it. Basically if I have been out of practice for a while, I shoot a 3x10 and make mental and physical notes of what went wrong, or what I could improve, looking very closely at my mental processes, between shot routine, and position. this gives something to focus on next practice session, and so on.

That is perhaps not the ideal approach. You should not really be looking for problems, rather looking at the good shots and repeating. Sure you need to know why shots were poor but take that as a positive and work to improve those aspects. Mentally that equates to saying for example 'smooth trigger and shot release' rather than 'don't snatch the trigger'.

Rob.

[battz being lazy]

Consider this

practise - you shoot for the sake of shooting

Training - you are shooting to achieve a goal (reason behind the shoot)

[mikeschroeder]

Hi Valerie

As an example I had the group going to NRA Nationals work on loading from their positions. I had them just load and shoot to get used to not taking the gun from the shoulder between shots.

Hope that helps.

Mike Schroeder
Wichita KS