TargetTalk

Hi

I have a 13 year old son who have been shooting for about a year now.

He shoot mostly Air pistol, rapid fire and some free pistol.

He's starting to show ok results, so he now knows what it is all about. Stands, lift, breathing, looking at the front site, trigger squeeze and so on.

Have heard that hold training is important, So was thinking about introducing hold training on days when we aren't at the range.

So I was hopeing someone could point me to some online literature on the subject.

Thanks

As far as I know you need to work on muscular strength (of the slow twitch muscles) and fitness, these will give better results for 'hold' than pure isometric 'hold' exercises.

Exercises must be balanced (equal work done right and left side) or it can lead to problems - esp in someone that young and still growing.

Learning to get the shot off earlier rather than later and trying to rely on 'hold' is also beneficial.
There's no real benefit in being able to hold for 30 seconds and then let the shot go comparing to learning to let a good shot go in 5-10 seconds.

Apart from that hold time is not something you can really work on beyond a fundamental limit physical limit, if you would want to.

Light weight training say a couple Kgs in each arm - and hold as you would the pistol is my suggestion - I use small dumbbell weights. Wrist exercises can also be useful but be very careful with that as the wrist can very easily get damaged. Other good exercises are those that work on core stability and balance. Wobble boards are one such option, but google and see what exercises suit.

Rob.

I'd honestly consider introducing him to a complementary sport. Fencing, or the unarmed martial arts.

Hi.

Rob mentioned some good ideas (as per usual!).

Dryfiring is one of the best sport specific physical training that a shooter can do. Have your son raise and hold for 10s, watching the front sight. After 10s, let him break the shot. You can have him hold on a dot or on a line, watching for movement deviation. If he stays on the dot/line, then great. If not, improve trigger release while developing hold.

You can do a lot of things to improve hold; but, also look at consistency in stance and grip (parts of the hold mechanism). Think holistically and within the limits of your son's attention span and physical build.

Hope that helps.
Patrick

Hi

Thank you all, for the info so far, lots of great tips

JamesH
My thoughts with the hold training was not to be able to delay the shot in any way, just keep the sight as steady as possible during the release of the shot.

Mike M
Hi has been playing Icehockey since he was 4 years old, so shooting is the complementary sport :-)

RobStubbs
He gets much of the core stability training from hockey, and I use Wobble boards as part of his stickhandling training.


Just bought a SCATT usb, so I guess dry fire will be more fun from now on.

Thanks

Morten

I think hold training to a certain degree can build shot hesitance if not approached in a mature and very careful way.

Something to the tune of:

"Bro, I lift 220lb - I could hold this puny gun here all day and therefore can wait forever for a perfect shot. Do you even lift?"

When really there is a time and a place where the shot almost needs to kind of happen*
- i've heard the number batted around that anything more than 7s is less than ideal. Using a Scatt confirms this if you need to prove it.

Take this all with a pinch of salt, I am really no expert - but I do sincerely think that shot hesitance has a pretty good track record (at least for me) of producing 8s instead of 10s.
Any doubt? Put the gun down, and start again.

Hope this helps you.
_____________________
* kind of happen = subconscious animal brain doing the work, not complex thoughts

SamEEE wrote:I think hold training to a certain degree can build shot hesitance if not approached in a mature and very careful way.

You are correct and the same with shot release timing - although one mans 7-seconds may be 5 for another person, or 9 for another. It's also not really about brute strength it's about tiring of the eyes. We are of course holding our breath when on aim so the eyes are effectively being starved of oxygen and visual accuity will quite rapidly drop off.

One tip to avoid that when overtraining hold, is to have a very exaggerated follow-through. So fire a shot (live or dry) as per normal, but hold for follow-through for 10,15, 20 seconds, or whatever you can sustain without too much fatigue, rest and repeat again.

Rob.

This worked for me.
I took a class when I first started HighPower where we did a great hold training drill to build up strength AND the shot abort. It was made very clear we were never to dry fire during the long holds so as not to develop the sub conscious that it was ok to hold that long and release the shot. What it did was help you learn it was ok to abort the shot.

The offhand drill:
1) Get into position follow your shot process with correct breathing.
Raise the rifle hold for 1 minute (try stay in 10 ring) while the rifle is up you may breath when needed but let the rifle settle back into the black with each breath.
2) At 1 minute abort the hold and down for 30 seconds DO NOT DRY FIRE HERE, because this is giving you strength training AND shot abort training
3) repeat 4 times
4) The 5th time dry fire within 10 seconds of your initial hold. The 10 seconds was the max, they wanted you to release the shot when it seemed natural to you. No aborts here - think time is running out must get the shot off.
5) Repeat steps 1-4 at least 5 times for a total of about 30 min.
10) When finished take a 5 min break and dry fire for 10 to 30 min. never holding more than 10 sec. abort hold if needed and start your hold over.

For the newbies keeping the sight picture in the black was hard but by the end of the week they were all staying in the black. During the class we used live fire during step 4 to measure progress. The improvements from day one to last day were impressive. The first day of this drill only about 10% of the newbies put all the shots in the black the last day all shots except 1 were in the black and most everyone improved one scoring ring or tightened up their group.

Disclaimer this was not the only training we received that impacted our offhand results. We also worked on, hold position, stance, sight picture, and trigger control, but most felt that this exercise was a big contributor.

Based on my experiences as a youth, decades ago, do racquet sports, push-ups, hand stands, may as well make it some fun. Along with that, for sheer endurance strength in the shoulders to hold up the firearm, hold a weighted milkjug in shooting position for timed periods.

Try this book from MEC, got it and it is full of great infos.
Good luck.
http://shop.mec-shot.com/en/book---pist ... 1/item/208

Try this book from MEC, got it and it is full of great infos.
Good luck.
http://shop.mec-shot.com/en/book---pist ... 1/item/208