It’s no secret that I’m deep down the rabbit hole of competitive shooting – I’m hooked, and I’m not quitting any time soon. While I approach the shooting sports through the traditional means of focusing on accuracy, sight picture, etc, I also bring a completely different background to my approach on shooting sports, namely that of athletics. Throughout high school and college, I was a competitive martial artist and even a bit of a baseball player. I’ve always been interested in physical fitness, and the science behind athletics. It’s that passion that I combined with the shooting sports, in the hopes of not only developing myself as a shooter, but developing myself as an athlete as well. In upcoming weeks, we’ll look at the science of shooting from an athletic point of view, including training and exercise tips, as well a physical examination of the types of movement and muscular development that can aid an action shooter to get faster times and better scores.
In the past, we’ve looked at the importance of grip strength to the shooter, and what you can do to increase your forearm and gripping strength. I think that taking an athletic approach to the shooting sports is going to take the game to the next level – a level you can already see being displayed by top athletes like Dave Sevigny of Team Glock. The same principles of strength, endurance, and conditioning that are applied to baseball, football, and basketball can be successfully applied to the shooting sports; not as a replacement for traditional training methods, but as a supplement to those methods.
We’ll kick off the series with Part 1 on Thursday, which will cover the most fundamental aspect of competitive shooting: the stance.
I am looking forward to these posts!
One source you might check out for grip strength options is “Iron Mind”
Keep up the good work.
Too bad you’re such a nice guy, because I’d like to hate you. 🙂 Ain’t gonna happen though.
It’s mostly my fault I’m overweight, and I’ve never had any of the coordination required of an athlete, nor the attention to detail to be a scientist ,so that’s two approaches to shooting that don’t suit me well. Is there an artistic approach? I’m into shooting for the fun of it and can handle a rifle better than the average Joe, mostly as a result of good eyes, some modest talent, and a lot of practice. I’ve retained a few successful techniques and have accumulated some quality tools over the years. As much as it irks me to consider myself an artist, I’ve learned that artists exploit technology, skill, and an enthusiasm for the medium. I paint in lead, Jack.