Where are You Aiming Nowadays?

[PirateJohn]

Sounds like you might need some shoulder strengthening to help reduce your arc. Maybe invest in some five pound hand weights and do some slow shoulder raises, shoulder holds, and arm circles (be sure to train both shoulders so you don't get lopsided).

[Scrench]

Thanks for that suggestion PirateJohn. I am hitting the elliptical 3x/week, stretching regularly, and about 150 pushups/week.

[PirateJohn]

Those are definitely good exercises and keep doing them, but to minimize arc, you need to target your shoulder muscles by doing targeted exercises with low weight and slow movement. Also useful will be getting a gyro ball and a hand strengthener that allows you to exercise each finger individually.

[PirateJohn]

To give you an idea of what I do, I have two 7.5 lb. hand weights. I will do three sets of ten shoulder lifts, taking four seconds to raise, four seconds to hold, then four seconds to lower. Then I will hold the weights out to the side at shoulder level for 60 seconds three times. Then I will do three sets of holding them at shoulder height and making ten small, slow circles forward, then ten backward. Then I will do three sets of holding one arm like I'm holding a pistol and do ten small, slow vertical figure 8's followed by ten horizontal figure 8's. (I don't do the figure 8's with my non-shooting hand but I do hold it at shoulder height for a comparable amount of time.) Then I do three sets of ten front raises.

If I finish early enough, I then follow with ten reps of holding the pistol on a target for 60 seconds (during Mt rest between reps I hold the gun in my left hand).

By now I am usually able to keep my arc within the 8 ring and on a good day I can keep it very close to the 9 ring.

[Gwhite]

<snip>
Since some grips can be canted, how should your wrist line up with your arm, and how do you "lock" it?
<snip>

Ideally, you want everything to fall into alignment without any effort. If you get a good natural point of aim, and then lift the pistol with your eyes closed, the sights should be in rough alignment. Pistols that allow you to adjust the lateral angle of the grip relative to the frame can fine tune this. Don't get too obsessed about it. A lot of gold medals have been won with Morini air pistols that didn't have that option. You can tweak your grip by filing or puttying it. Very small changes are usually all that is required.

As far as "locking" things, you want to have just enough muscles tension so the bone structure is lightly immobilized at the joints. Hold your arm level with your palm down, and relax your wrist completely so the hand flops down. Now, use your wrist muscles to lift your hand so it is horizontal. That's a good approximation of how much muscle tension it takes to "lock" your wrist. You can immobilized the wrist comfortably over a range of angles, so the you may have to practice achieving a consistent angle.

The end goal is to minimize variables (like lots of muscles holding the pistol up without locked joints), and maximize consistency WITHOUT physical strain.

[Scrench]

Thank you guys, your advice is going to go a long way to improving my situation. And I'm still sifting through older threads to soak up every bit of knowledge I can get.

I never did shoulder-specific exercises before, thinking push ups would cover it, but after doing a couple of sets as you suggested, I could feel weaknesses in areas push ups don't address. I have complete control over my fingers since I have been a professional guitarist all my life. Playing guitar alone keeps the dexterity and strength up.

And I admit, I have been guilty of trying to "buy" points, having owned, let's take inventory for a moment ... over a dozen guns, including every SSP except a Walther LPM1, and every top-of-the-line pcp except Morini, although I borrowed one from a friend for a weekend and didn't like it. I kept trying to find the "right" one. And of course I spent tons of time trying to tweak each gun to fit me perfectly because I just "knew" that that was the problem, improper fit. Well I'm done with that. Time to put in the work where it counts.

There. I feel like I've bared my soul before the gun Gods, confessing all of my most hidden shooting sins to the entire world, and hope I am not excommunicated. I have a feeling of what the Penance will be, and it starts with a giant letter P.

[Gwhite]

One thing about exercises: The theory is that you want to work on developing "slow twitch muscles", not "fast twitch muscles". The way you do that is with lots of reps with LIGHT weights, NOT the 7.5 pound weights PirateJohn is using. You don't want big bulky muscles.

http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php ... 34#p267434

[PirateJohn]

The way you do that is with lots of reps with LIGHT weights, NOT the 7.5 pound weights PirateJohn is using. You don't want big bulky muscles.

For me, though, 7.5 pounds is very light. It's most important to use a weight that you can control slowly and deliberately. If you can do that with 7.5 pounds, then do that. If you need to use lighter weight, that's okay, too.