TargetTalk

Hello,

Now that my son is starting to shoot in actual matches, I was wanting to use a spreadsheet of a sort to track his progress. Are there any commercially available or is anyone willing to share there spreadsheets?

regards,

Patrick

pmelchman wrote:Hello,

Now that my son is starting to shoot in actual matches, I was wanting to use a spreadsheet of a sort to track his progress. Are there any commercially available or is anyone willing to share there spreadsheets?

regards,

Patrick

First ask yourself what it is you want to track, and why ? Scores are nice but don't tell you anything that you can use. Far better to start a shooting diary and record everything in that. Your (his) coach will also love you for it !

If all you're interested in is scores then make an excel spreadsheet.

Rob.

i have a spread sheet i use to track my progress....

it maps the overall match/practice score, individual target score, indivdual target average.

i graph the overall match score, and then i graph the target averages

works pretty well for me, plus i have plenty of data for finding odd trends.

im having trouble attaching it.....but if you want to send me your email address, ide be more than happy to send you a copy of what im using

With my coach hat on I would again ask what's the point ? What information are you taking from the data and using to improve your shooting ? How are you modifying your training to get better ?

A graph of scores going up looks nice, but what do you do when it starts dropping, as it surely will. And what are you learning ?

Rob.

With my coach hat on I would again ask what's the point ? What information are you taking from the data and using to improve your shooting ? How are you modifying your training to get better ?

A graph of scores going up looks nice, but what do you do when it starts dropping, as it surely will. And what are you learning ?

Rob.

honestly as of right now, its more of a motivational thing....i can look back and see how my shooting has progressed...and if i have a bad day, i can look back and say" i may have not shot well today.....but look how far ive come over the past month..."

ive tried the notebook/ diary thing, and i could never really get into it.....


i also keep a small section for notes, so if there was something different about that day....or if i changed something up, i can log it in, and then if i notice something odd in the data, i can reference my notes and see what happened...

it also allows me to see if certain changes are effective.....if i change something, and then notice it really hasnt had a noticeable effect....i can look back and try to figure out why its not working.

..now do you need a graph to see this, well no.....but it sure does make it a lot easier to see.


one thing it has told me, is that in my 10m air....i seem to, on average, shoot my 5th sheet the best......now what does that mean....not entirely sure.......but im figuring that ill spend some more time on sighters on each sheet...will it help, i dunno, but im going to find out.....


now this may not be the most effective means of bettering your self......but its sure not hurting anything either.

rostubbs, 'why' you ask...because. I'm the dad that has to do something other than drive my son to his next match, practice, buy his equipment, and because I generally like to keep busy. It's my fun. Trend analysis, to see what changed....and you are right in saying a log book is a good way of tracking for the shooter....but I'm not going to read his log..... I like numbers. when you have been watching/living with someone for 15 years ...I can read him like a book. All it is, is data collection of a sort. I can tell you by the way he wakes up if he will shoot good...or not so good. He's 15...if it motivates him to keep shooting to see his scores climb... so be it. He has set reasonable goals for himself the past 1 1/2 years and he's reached them all. He has just now started to take his log book more serious because he has lost a few matches by only a few points ...due to the fact that he did not write information down. Ever since we were in grade school, we have received a report card....we just like to know how well we did....

Regards,

I have a very in depth spreadsheet for tracking scores. You can even enter the scores shot by shot for both direction and value. PM me an email address I can send it. Note the spreadsheet is about 4MB empty.

Perhaps a compromise? Basically, I do both. A graph data collection excel spread sheet and my log alongside it in the same sheet to see if changes effect performance. It's primitive but kind of works for me. You can draw inferences from longer term trends especially if you can relate them to events.. Also, I keep the targets with dates and notes on them to refer back to, for a long time (usually a year). There is tons of info on those targets. I also use them as personal motivators. The scores drop one or maybe two sessions, OK no big deal. 3rd session same, time to go back over the logs and data to analyze whether something changed.

What I was saying was that if you have limited time then there are more productive ways of recording stuff. As it happens you seem to be doing a bit of journal stuff alongside keeping yourself interested with plotting scores - that's great.

I may be barking up the wrong tree, but have you considered trying to coach him (I'm assuming you don't) ? It's a tough thing to do and get the balance right with your own family - I know as coach my wife which can be like walking barefoot on broken glass !

That said you can then observe him shooting his matches and make notes etc about things to look at in future training sessions. You can also help him prepare for the match and review it afterwards, with a view to taking positive learnings from it.

Rob.

RobStubbs wrote:A graph of scores going up looks nice, but what do you do when it starts dropping, as it surely will. And what are you learning ?

From my experience, improvement comes in the form of:

Improvement
Plateau
Decline
Improvement to a higher level (and so on)

So when I went into a decline I was really happy because I knew that when I came out of it, I would be shooting even better than before.

I used to graph scores early on for the same reasons as Mcameron - to track improvements to specific changes. I don't bother anymore though.

KennyB wrote:

RobStubbs wrote:A graph of scores going up looks nice, but what do you do when it starts dropping, as it surely will. And what are you learning ?

From my experience, improvement comes in the form of:

Improvement
Plateau
Decline
Improvement to a higher level (and so on)

So when I went into a decline I was really happy because I knew that when I came out of it, I would be shooting even better than before.

I used to graph scores early on for the same reasons as Mcameron - to track improvements to specific changes. I don't bother anymore though.

Improvements in technique will more often than not induce drops in (score) performance but so will picking up bad habits. The idea of training is to keep improving technique etc and in so doing plateuas and dips will naturally follow. But that doesn't mean a dip will result in a subsequent raise, unless your doing something to make that happen.

Rob.

One of the best ways of checking progress is to note every score but not to graph every score. Set up a column that has the raw scores. Next to it, 3 cells down, put in "=average(sum of cell, cell2 & cell3). Grab the corner and drag down to the bottom of the scores. That should give a column of the average of the 3 previous raw scores. It gives you a "running average" of 3 scores.

You try it with 5 cells as well if you want to try a smoother trend. Then graph the running average of the 3 and 5 scores.

The usefullness of this to animproving shooter is that when a score is shot, the effect is to smooth the resultant average. The shooter does not get tied up with the "randomness" of the raw scores but can see at a glance if the trend is improving or not.

I trend over the past 3-4 weeks on my shooters to see the average.

I've surprised many kids by showing them a score after they come off the line in a match (without watching their targets) and it be within a point or 2 of what they fired.

In juniors especially many either:
1) Always want to match a PR
2) Improve a PR
While it will occasionally happen in a match, more often it won't and they will try to beat themselves up.

I was taught years ago, by a coach I really respect (Bob Foth), that juniors should be complimented if they can shoot an average in a match ... actually I use a +/-3 of their average. (Air 3x20)
Of course, lots of praise if it equals or betters a PR, but it's a job well done if it +/-3 of average.

With school, peers, hormones, grades, driving lessons, (parents?) ... they may zing wildly on some months .... a 3-4 week average keeps you cool too ......