TargetTalk

Just wondering if there are any good reads online or in your files that might help with how to deal with stress and elevated heart rates when shooting. I live about 75 miles from the Gulf in S. La. so our biathlon opportunities are about as numerous as our snow mobile dealers.

Just thinking there may be something to gleen from the musings on biathlon and from biathlon shooters.

Anyone got any personal tips that work for them when they get to the line or links to go reads?

Thanks,

Bo

I have been an active biathlete for 5 years. Biathlon is such a small sport it is easy to spend time with the National Team when they are at North American events or at training camps. I have had many discusions with the team members, coaches and other athletes about shooting with a high HR.

What we have agreed upon is there are three basic zones which effect the ability to shoot. The technique is the same but what you see is very different.

Coming into the range too hot ( near max HR) your heart is pounding away. My race pace HR is about 180 BPM so max HR (mHR) is about 187. At this HR my blood is at the limit of O2 transport and my breathing rate is also very high. Best guess is 30-40 breaths per minute. This combines to make a bad shooting session worse. If I slow down my breathing my vision gets dull and the heaving of my chest is too great to have any kind of hold. The heart pounding is assumed to be the heart not completely filling and sending pulses of blood that are really noticeable looking through the sights. The lack of O2 also has fine motor control and sharp vision lacking. Shooting in this zone is counting on luck to hit anything much less the target.

When my HR drops into the 155-170 range my O2 saturation is good and the pounding has gone away and the pulses are also much less and holding my breath to break the shot works. The breath hold is minimal and the shot is taken while breathing the sights onto the proper target. When things look good, hold the breath to steady the gun and break the shot. This zone is where the best shooting to time spent on point is and lasts about 30 seconds before the HR drops and things get bad again.

At a rate lower then 155 my heart begins pounding again. I think my blood is oxygenated enough the heart has time to completely fill and each beat moves a lot of blood compared to the zone mentioned above. The sights jump all over the place and shooting is almost as difficult as coming in too hot. Unfortunately, this zone take a while to get to and then through to a more slow fire pace.

The best analogy I can come up with is shooting in the proper zone is like bailing a boat with each bucketfull containing only 2/3 full.You can go fast and each bucket takes a little effort to make and doesn't rock the boat too much. When you enter the last zone you're bailing with a full bucket which takes more energy to lift and throw which moves the boat around more.

Most range times are between 20 seconds and a bit over a minute. The World Cup athletes are in the 20 second range, weekend duffers like me hover around a minute. My best (actually hitting targets) is 38 seconds offhand. Range time is the pole down, to pole up time. Essentially the athlete gets to the mat, places the poles on the ground, kneels (prone), removes the rifle, swaps mags, gets into position, breaks 5 shots, remounts the rifle, grabs the poles and starts skiing. Usually the first 10-12 seconds is used prior to breaking the first shot and the shot-to-shot times are 1 to 3 seconds.

This is a long reply but there is not much available on biathlon style shooting. There is the shooter's cookbook which is very good but I believe its out of print.

There are also summer biathlons for those w/o snow. The rifle stays at the range on the rack and you run laps instead of ski them.

Although I'm far from an expert, this technique has worked for me. Besides slowing things down approaching he range so you're not maxed out, I will hyperventilate 5-10 quick maximal breaths between shots. This lowers your arterial CO2 just enough that you can hold your breath for the shot without the overwhelming urge to breath interfering with your aim. The elite biathletes don't do this, and it does add time to your shooting, but the couple extra seconds are a lot less than a penalty lap for a miss. And I only do it for standing. Good luck!