Olympic practice vs beginner practice

[jackh]

How different do you all think it is (if different at all) between the mind set and approach to shooting for the near Olympic level shooter, and the learning, but somewhat experienced novice shooter? Do you think the advice to either should be the same or different?

Jackh

[Gwhite]

There are a lot of things a beginner should be focusing on (i.e. "the basics") that an Olympic level athlete should have largely committed to muscle memory. Worrying about mental management when you are still jerking the trigger and ignoring the front sight is not a very productive use of ones time.

[paulo]

Search in the ISSF TV site, for "Daryl" take a look at:
ISSF World Cup Rifle / Pistol · Sydney, AUS, 2010
around 1:10 on the interview
120 shots in the morning, followed by trigger and sights training
60 shots in the afternoon, physical preparation late afternoon
EVERY DAY!

[sparky]

I don't know about "Olympic" caliber shooters, as I am not, but I think the difference I've seen in a beginner vs. someone who is more experienced is the effort they put into the analysis of their shooting. A beginner usually has no concept of being able to call their shots. An expert will generally be able to tell you exactly where his shot went and why it went there. Beginners tend to just aim and shoot at a target, practicing trigger control and breath control. More experienced shooters tend to keep logs of the conditions they were shooting in, any peculiarities, any variations in technique they tried, etc. More experienced shooters might try adjusting little things in their stance or grip and experimenting to see what sort of affect it has on their performance, that a beginner might not even think of.

[Patrick Haynes]

How different do you all think it is (if different at all) between the mind set and approach to shooting for the near Olympic level shooter, and the learning, but somewhat experienced novice shooter?

Jackh

Hi Jack.

There is some very interesting research being done on differences between expert and novice performers. While initial research was cross-domain (looking at musicians, chess players, mathematicians, golfers), there is more and more research delving into skilled athletic performance (i.e. shooting).

For instance, there was some interesting research done on hold stability for pistol shooters. They looked at what experts did and what novices did. They found that novices tried to reduce movement through increased rigidity of the hand, arm and shoulder. This increase in rigidity actually led to worse performance. Experts, on the other hand, developed compensatory body movements which maintained the pistol's position in space. For example, if they swayed to the left, they compensated with an equal and opposite movement with the arm. This seemed to be a natural act, not performed consciously. Rigidity failed and fluidity succeeded.

There is also some very good literature about the differences between experts and novices on attentional focus. What are you thinking about when you perform a skilled act? Both novices and experts are thinking. The novice tends to think about how to perform the activity (internal focus); whereas, the expert thinks about the desired outcome of the activity (external focus). The location of your focus has been proven to have an impact on how the performance is delivered.

If you have the time, I'd suggest reading "Expert Performance in Sports: Advances in Research on Sport Expertise", edited by Janet Starkes and Anders Ericsson. Its a bit academic, but worth the effort.

There is a lot of information on the subject, but you need to look at motor performance literature. Most shooting material doesn't address the subject well.

Regards.
Patrick

[Chris]

I see the person starting out having to focus on any more things in the shot process than a more experienced person because the muscle memory is not developed fully. As you become more experienced you have the ability to focus on specific things during a training session. I have found I can train by just dry firing for free pistol and shoot really good scores since I have spent lots of time in the past live firing.

[jackh]

All points taken very well.
I had two points in mind with the first post.
1. there is a difference in practice approaches for the different skill/experience level.
2. advice/teaching from a coach or even a forum is not always on the right level.

[Retired]

The fundamentals to shooting a good pistol shot or 5-shot series is the same for shooters of all levels. What makes the difference is the mind set. You must believe. You must commit. You must execute. How you approach training, matches, a match season, a quadrennium leading to the next Olympics, that's what makes the difference. Live fire practice with purpose or with specific training outcomes, dry fire, physical training, mental training, strategy... these are the things once-a-week shooters could use to improve their performance.
Good luck,
Retired

[zuckerman]

OK so what is strategy? and what should a shooter in the middle (not a beginner, but not an Olympic shooter) use look at and/or practice?

[john bickar]

OK so what is strategy? and what should a shooter in the middle (not a beginner, but not an Olympic shooter) use look at and/or practice?

The biggest thing that I notice in watching mid-level shooters (let's say SS-EX, or say 480-550 AP) - and I watch a lot of them - is that they do. not. stand. still.

Setting the gun down in between shots. Shifting their feet to look in the scope. Shifting their feet in between shots. Resuming the grip without establishing a stance (or grip, for that matter) first.

And then when they're in the shot process, their body is swaying, their arm is swaying, their grip is wobbly.

Stability starts at the feet and works up from there.

• * Make sure you have a stable, repeatable stance
  * Make sure you have a stable, repeatable grip
  * Then, actually repeat those things
  * And when you have them, don't change them unless you absolutely have to

Without a solid, repeatable stance and grip, you don't really have a repeatable shot process.

[NB]

Follow Bickars directions!

[jackh]

I agree 100% with John Bickar. However the lessons/coaching/internet advice for standing still are few and far between as far as I know. Sight alignment and trigger control are fundamental. But essentials underneath the fundamentals like stability are often taken for granted. And discussions for such essentials are fleeting at best. That is what I mean about different level shooters needing different things to build on at different times.

The object of the shot series is to send projectiles from the firing line on the same path each time. (Path termination at the ten ring is irrelevant at first). So yes it starts with your feet solidly on the firing line. There should be more discussion about things between your feet and your sights.

[john bickar]

There should be more discussion about things between your feet and your sights.

OK, I'll try.

Stability diagnosis varies so much between individuals, though, that it doesn't generalize well to prescriptive text. What follows is probably too long and might not be helpful but then that's always the case with anything that I say.

It's usually a lot easier to have a buddy help you diagnose stability issues rather than doing it yourself. Even better is to have a video camera on a tripod. If I'm watching a shooter, I try to sit down, close one eye, and watch the shooter in relation to some fixed point in the background.

Standing still starts with practicing actually standing still.

Stand, in one place, arms at your sides, feet shoulder width apart, and just stand there. Close your eyes. Try to detect any movement. Try to determine where the movement comes from.

Shift your weight to find the position of greatest stability. Move your feet further apart. More/less stable?

Move your feet closer together. More/less stable?

A lot of movement is in the falling forward/falling backwards axis. Most often it's falling forward.

Look at your foot positioning. Are your feet:
splayed? \ /
parallel? | |
turned inward? / \

If you find yourself falling forward, try turning your toes more inward towards each other. You're looking for the sweet spot between instability and too much muscle tension. (Erich Buljung taught me this trick.)

You want to be as stable as possible first, and as relaxed as possible second. The two are often complementary (as indicated by Patrick upthread).

If a given position is more stable but requires more muscle tension, use it. If two positions are equally stable but one is more relaxed, use that one.

Note that all of the above is done without the shooting arm raised, nor even any orientation towards the target. That means you can practice it whenever you find yourself standing in a line someplace you'd rather not be.

Also, I should mention that this advice is generalized and targeted towards beginning/improving shooters. Watch Tanyu Kiryakov shoot sometime and you'll see that there are many ways to skin a cat.

Ultimately, there is no one magically stable position. There's only "more stable" and "less stable". The only people who achieve 100% stability can't fog a mirror.

Finding your most stable position takes a lot of careful observation and a lot of hard. freakin'. work.

[Retired]

OK so what is strategy? and what should a shooter in the middle (not a beginner, but not an Olympic shooter) use look at and/or practice?

Strategy involves determining what you need to do and developing a plan to get you from where you are to where you want to be. For instance, if you're a mid-level shooter that wants to shoot scores that will land you in finals at nationals, assuming you're not already making finals at nationals, you really have to evaluate what you're doing, determine what you need to do more of or do differently, and then plan out how to make those changes. Next step is to execute. You adjust as you reach or miss objectives that you plan out for yourself.

Strategy involves planning what to train and when, what milestones you should reach and when, which matches to go to, not to mention the frequency and intensity of training.

When I was competing, it was normal for me to have an entire plan for a four year period that involved what to do and when. There were varying percentages of time spent on live-fire, physical training, dry fire, mental prep, etc., depending on the time of year and at which point in the four year cycle.

That's strategy.

Good luck,
Retired

[lastman]

Another key component to stability to core strength and endurance.

In order to stand a still as possible the human body requires the muscles designed to hold the body steady to be as fit as possible. This means they can be activated (tensed slightly) for very long periods of time without fatiguing (twitching.)

Stretching and stability based exercises will dramatically increase you ability to stand still.

Good luck.

[ArmyMule]

This will be brief and perhaps too brief. The olympic level shooter trains to shoot tens. The novis must train to learn how tens are shot Good Shooting Bill Horton

[Patrick Haynes]

(I meant to get this posted last week, but I lost my connectivity in the airport.)

There is a lot of talk around stability and its importance for shooters. I recall one coach who would observe athletes and say "You have some body sway." After that cryptic statement, he had nothing to offer. He was very knowledgeable, but there wasn't much on the subject of stability twenty years ago. Unfortunately, that seems to be the standard for sway discussions. Athletes have a problem and need to fix it.

Fortunately, over the last decade, there has been a lot of research into sway. To get at that info, we need to look at sources outside of the usual suspects for shooting knowledge. In short, we need to investigate static postural stability and the mechanisms that support that from a physiology perspective. What follows are my notes, in layman terms on a complex subject. I'm an ISSF coach with the NCDS and not a kinesiologist. As with anything you read on the internet, buyer beware.

Essentially, we need to look at two general systems: the mechanical system (muscles, joints, etc.) and the feedback systems.

From a mechanical system, physiology tells us a few things. Stability or sway control takes place at two primary locations: the ankles and the hips. You lean forward or backward at the ankles. You bend around the hips: right, left, forward, backward. These two areas are manipulated to get you into a stable, static position.

As John mentioned above, foot placement has an impact as well, increasing or decreasing your base of support, as well as changing tension through the ankles.

You could consider lowering your centre of gravity, by widening your stance and lowering your torso; BUT, this increases muscle tension in your legs. Research shows that as muscle tension increases, so does tremors in the body. Also, fatigue comes into play. As your match progresses, you may need to adjust your stance. This affects your consistency. In general, I think that a lower centre of gravity (apart from being short - something for coaches to consider during talent selection) is a losing strategy.

The mechanical system must also incorporate your musculature. Often we hear about developing core strength. That's great advice, but to what purpose? Core strength is manifested in a number of ways. We need to focus on postural stability. Generally speaking, a shooting athlete needs a solid midsection and back, plus all the stabilizers through the legs, pelvic girdle and trunk.

Additionally, the pistol shooter has another area of instability, through the shoulder. We need to attach the arm to the trunk and the shoulder is the weak link. Consequently, the shoulder girdle needs to be strong and toned equally. Also, the shoulder blade needs to be fit, held securely in place and stabilizing the arm.

So, the mechanical system is in place. Now what? You need feedback to control the body. This takes place through your central nervous system, through some subsystems. The first interface is the proprieceptive system which receives a great deal of information through the soles of your feet. Your feet detect changes in intensity and location of pressure across your soles. This tells your body when and where you are swaying toward. That information is relayed back to your brain to tell you to correct your position.

Similarly, your inner ear or vestibular system is like an extremely complex spirit level. It detects movement in multiple planes and, like the soles of your feet, relays info back to the brain to correct position. This highlights the need for an erect head position. Tilting the head alerts the vestibular system, requesting stability corrections. These false alerts could also mask legitimate alerts about instability. Good head position leaves the system available for detecting real body shifts which need correction.

The last monitoring system of note is vision. Your eyes register objects and your proximity to them. When standing, your movement is detected through minute distance changes between you and what you see. This works for objects in your primary focal plane and within your peripheral vision. (Research shows that people are more stable standing close to a wall than in the middle of a room.) When you visually detect movement, again, that information is relayed to the brain, where a response is selected and activated. This knowledge brought up an interesting question in my mind regarding the use of blinders, which effectively negate the visual feedback systems. Athletes who suffer from visual distraction control should use blinders or learn how to shut them out. Otherwise, ditch the blinders and allow the visual monitoring systems to do their work.

These monitoring systems work together to give your brain the best information for detecting movement. More quality information results in better responses, consequently a more stable stance. As such, the shooting athletes needs to bring all these systems into their performance for superior stability. Like every other aspect in our sport, these systems can and must be trained, either to activate or improve them.

I'm not going to get into the exercises here, but if you're interested in learning more, I'm hosting an airgun training camp at the Camp Perry Marksmanship Training Centre, in Port Clinton, Ohio, on the November 6/7, 2010 weekend. Among the presentations and shooting, there will be sessions on developing stability. The camp is intended for Canadian athletes, but, there are a few spaces available for our friends. If you're interested in attending, please contact me at haynes@targetshooting.ca

Patrick Haynes
Pistol Coach / Canadian Forces CISM Shooting Team