TargetTalk

Because I am a fulltime grad student and have 2 jobs I don't have enough time to spend 2hr+ on the range practicing 2+ times a week. So I have decided to improve my physical conditioning and mental focus. I am attempting to workout 3-4times a week cardio and weights (focus on endurance). I am also getting back into yoga to increase my flexibility and mental focus along with visualization exercises.

Then just doing holding/dry fire exercises a couple of times a week I think would help with muscle memory and consistency. These would be short 20-30min sessions with just the rifle, no suite.

Has anyone used a similar or different training method when short on time?

Feel free to chime in with other training ideas.

Wow, sounds like you're very busy!
I think it goes without saying that actually shooting is the best thing you can do to practice shooting, whether "live" or dry firing.

Nevertheless, I think some activities / sports offer significant cross-benefits to the shooter. I have nine different sport activities that I practice regularly, ranging from as little as 1-2 hours per month up to about 6 hours per week, with a good bit of fluctuation from month to month depending on my disposition and the weather. My own personal set of sports is biking, yoga, climbing, shooting, jogging, skating, swimming, weight training, and archery, and I am quite confident that of that group yoga is the one with the most positive correlation to my shooting performance - it teaches balance, focus, and strength (it's vinyasa yoga); skating is probably a close second (archery I don't think helps, at least in my case). I'm also pretty sure that climbing has a negative impact on my shooting (fingers and forearms get numb, sore, or stiff for a few days).

I'd speculate that if your goals are to reach high levels of competition in the near-term that cross-training will not be an acceptable substitute for shooting, but maybe that is what will have to work for you with your studies and work. As for me, my goal is to have fun and give myself little challenges and fun tasks without letting them become onerous or tedious (for example, I am trying to shoot 400+ in free pistol with a factory-stock single-action revolver). I've only been shooting (for score) for about three years now, so I'm still at the stage where there is consistent improvement... but I do worry about whether I'll still be motivated to practice when I reach a score plateau and it's harder to see the 'return on investment' of the direct correlation between practice time and performance.

Anyway, good luck with your studies and with your shooting.

You are busy, but your outcome depends as much on your goals (as jr stated) as your activities.

You need to set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time constrained goals to work towards. just hold and dry firing will become tedious if there is not a goal.

You need both goals for the long term, what do you want fro m shooting in five years, as well as shorter term, what do you want to accomplish with your shooting in the next 12-18 months. Then these need to be broken down to goals for each training session. What are you trying to accomplish by holding and dry firing? How are you measuring that?

Don't worry about the clothing at this time, as it can become a crutch, and will always be available to add to your routine as your goals change.

Besides the physical training, and the sport specific training, you should consider mental training (including reading about shooting and the mental aspects), and a period sometime in the year for down/rest time away from the sport.

Good luck.

The above sounds a reasonable strategy but you need to factor in your goals and see if they are acheivable given your current training time. You also need to periodise your training and tailor the activities for each period accordingly. So at the start of the annual cycle physical conditioning is perfect, alongside training the technical elements of shooting (such as triggering for example). As you approach the main competition period you need to up the shooting training for the competitions. You can do the latter dry firing to some extend but you'd need to be fully kitted up, doing the full 60-shots and interspersing that with live fired matches as well.

Rob.

I've found great benefit from short dry fire sessions when I don't have time for practice.and training. 15 minutes a few times a week.

But a dry fire session is training, at least for me.

For me dry firing is the best training there is and live fire feels more like a test to see the progress and to get used to shooting strings of perfect shots and high results.

Anonymous wrote:But a dry fire session is training, at least for me.

For me dry firing is the best training there is and live fire feels more like a test to see the progress and to get used to shooting strings of perfect shots and high results.

Dry firing is great training but it is different to shooting a match live. During the competition phase it's getting the 60-shot match trained and feeling right that matters.

Rob.

RobStubbs wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But a dry fire session is training, at least for me.

For me dry firing is the best training there is and live fire feels more like a test to see the progress and to get used to shooting strings of perfect shots and high results.

Dry firing is great training but it is different to shooting a match live. During the competition phase it's getting the 60-shot match trained and feeling right that matters.

Rob.

For me the dry firing is performed exactly the same way as when I shoot live fire. Why do training in a way that you don't do in competition?

Of course I pick different things to focus on during my training sessions but the whole process is still used. Except when i adjust something for an example the sling length. I get that sorted out and then I apply my whole process when testing it whether it's dry fire or live fire.

It's just that i meant when I wrote "live fire feels more like a test to see the progress and to get used to shooting strings of perfect shots and high results.". For me I need to get used to a certain result before it becomes "easy" to do that result in a competition. For me the real training is done with dry fire, if I shoot to much live fire compared to dry fire my scores drops.

But everyone is probably different.

The only thing I reacted to is that SteveT said he does dry firing when he doesn't have the time to do some training.

I said ”practice or training”. Dry firing can be either.

Also, I am talking about a typical shooter. If you are serious about training for the national team, you have to make the time to do it right. On the otherhand, if you are juggling work, family, school and other activities, sometimes that will prevent proper practice and training.

My main point was that some dry firing is better than nothing. I had heard so many times ”dry fire exactly like you would ...” That I would only dry fire when I had at least 30 minutes to dedicate to it. More recently I said what the heck and did a few minutes dry fire in the morning before work. Guess what? It made a huge difference.

I found that while my shoes make a difference in my stability, they don't have an effect on the quality of my training. Pants and shirt are even less important, so I can save a few minutes changing and dry fire in whatever I am wearing.

I found that I learned a lot from short sessions. There's no time to ”warm up” so things I might write off in a longer.session, I notice and think about.

I found.that a few short sessions a week made me feel ready for a match. Mentally I was more confident and not thinking about how unprepared I was. I would be better prepared if I had more range time, but the difference was small.

I found that I didn't lose skills, which I would if I went several weeks or months with no shooting.