Lower back tension in Offhand

[lyoke]

When shooting offhand I have noticed that as my sights are settling down onto the bull my lower right side of my back tenses up. I am a right handed shooter. I am really not sure why this is. It doesn't happen every time but enough to throw me off.

Has anyone experienced this before? Is there a solution?

Thank you!

[Jimro]

Here are a few ideas.

1, wear a compression undershirt if you aren't already. The feedback on your skin can help your mind feel more connected to your body and so it won't need to tighten muscles to get that feedback. This is why baseball players wear long sleeve shirts, it lets them know where their arms are without looking.

2, stretch. I have recurring lower back pain. The only two things that help long term are stretching and exercise. Strengthen the muscles and keep your range of motion. A yoga ball can help.

3, when it happens again, notice the placement of your body. Are you feeling any tingles or numbness elsewhere? If so, keep good notes to see if one precedes the other. If something else is triggering the tension, learning what that is can help you avoid it.

4, time yourself in the offhand. If the tension comes after a specific time interval, start breaking position and stretching before you hit that time interval.

Hope this is useful.

Jimro

[patriot]

Here are a few ideas.
2, stretch. I have recurring lower back pain. The only two things that help long term are stretching and exercise. Strengthen the muscles and keep your range of motion. A yoga ball can help.

Hope this is useful.

Jimro

I train for kayak racing 1-2 hours a week or go canoeing to keep my core strong and flexible. I was starting to have occasional minor lower back pain and this cured it. I can't explain why, but I've shot some of my best prone and offhand scores the following day. It eliminated a similar problem with a right shoulder muscle tightening mid-offhand hold while shooting sporter silhouette without a coat. I noticed over the holidays that my arms no longer got tired while held over my head painting a ceiling; suspect the body has increased the blood flow to my shoulders.

Mark

[yana]

I have this too.
In my case, there's not much to do about it. I'm hypermobile.
You might wanna check yr zero position. If you turn in yr upper body too much, it'll strain the right lower side of yr back.
If yr off-zero. Compensate with yr whole position, not yr upper body.
And, a more open position is less stressing as well.
Changing yr position a tad can help too; narrower usually stresses my back less
Same goes for hand position; both where it is in yr hip as well as height. If you have to sink in too much it'll give more strain.
Than you can use a hamster (or what do they call these??) From yr story, I think this is the case. (sinking in far).

And, as said, core stability excersizes.
A shooting outfit may help too, giving support.

Do nót tape it in or whatsoever, or brace it. It'll only weaken it.

[lyoke]

Thank you everyone! I will definitely look into these solutions. I did a lot of stretching before my matches yesterday. It helped a lot but eventually the pain came back so strengthing the back will be a must.

Thank you.

[Ryan Anderson]

What you're describing can also be attributed to either having too much weight too far forward (i.e. your gun is too front-heavy), and/or you have your NPA set too low on the target and are having to use those back muscles to pull the gun back up and keep it from drifting down. Neither is good. You really don't want to try and put a band-aid on this problem, but fix the basic problem, otherwise you're going to experience the chronic back injuries that you hear about a lot of shooters having. That being said, I still strongly advocate for strengthening your core and back muscles, but that is more just to improve your hold and physical endurance in position, not to fix the pain. Pain is your body telling you that you're doing it wrong. I would try adding weight to the back of your gun and seeing if your NPA isn't a bit low, as doing those two things might take a lot of the pressure off your lower back and help you prevent both the pain and injury in the future.

Ryan