Enducing Stress Before Training

[Ben86]

Lately I've been experimenting with inducing mental and or physical stress before shooting at my range to add a new challenging element to my training and keep from sticking to just lackadaisical "square range training." Before I go to shoot I might go for an intense run, do enough pull ups or push ups to make my arms tired and twitchy, or spin around a bit before picking the gun up and shooting the target. I know that last one sounds ridiculous and unsafe, but I promise it is not unsafe (but it does look ridiculous).

Does anyone else try to induce stress before training? If so what works? What do you think about this approach?

 

[Owen Sparks]

Put a drop of Tobasco sauce on your finger tip and touch it to your left eye, Now draw and shoot!

 

[kayak-man]

Owen, I don't think I'll be trying that one just yet, but I may try swimming laps without goggles before going to the range.

Ben, I like the idea of the spinning around one. You should try something that gets the adrenaline going too. Mountainbiking? Surfing?

I've just started shooting the "Falling Steel" matches at my range, and I think thats about all the stress I can handle right now.

Chris "the Kayak-Man" Johnson

 

[ACP]

It's a great idea, I don't do it enough.

You could do burpees, jumping jacks, or some quick sprints before reholstering your gun and drawing and firing.

I have also experimented with holding something -- a range bag, a brass bucket -- to simulate holding a child or carrying a grocery bag, etc. This forces you do draw and shoot one-handed while adjusting for a load being carried on your arm, chest or hip.

I also like to open and close portal doors to simulate entering a room, a building, my house, etc.

Finally, I will often turn my back to a target and walk forwards or backwards -- or, if it is on a pulley, adjust the distance that way -- so I don't know how close or far away the target will be when I turn and fire.

Having some type of electronic timer with a random buzzer is also good; draw and shoot a pair when the buzzer goes off.

 

[Al Thompson]

ACP illustrates an excellent point. If you don't use a shot timer, you have no scale to measure with.

 

[Stope Rat]

I reported to a semi-annual qualification test once and the Range Officer announced that Chief XXX had decided to change the qual procedure.

We were to run a quarter mile, pull our rifle bags from the trunk, and make a head shot at 100 yards - with a 60 second time limit from when the trunk lid opened. Anyone that missed the shot was disqualified and pulled from the program.

He kept us all in a separate staging area so we couldn't see what was happening, and once you shot you were again segregated.

And then when it was over he told us "Just Kidding!"

Now that was stress shooting!!

And yes, I made the shot.

 

[Fred Fuller]

IMHO the best way to induce stress in training is to have someone like Louis Awerbuck drag you around for three days with 20 or so other students, adding ever increasing levels of demand to your performance, giving you ample opportunity to look like an idiot and embarrass yourself beyond redemption.

But that's just me...

lpl

 

[Cosmoline]

I've found that riding the bike to the range helps, as does making a point of shooting in the open when it's raining or snowing.

If you want random bits of stress, position yourself to the right of someone throwing a lot of hot brass. Train yourself to ignore it.

 

[ForumSurfer]

Between a 5 or sometimes 6 day work out routine (heavy lifting for 3-4 days), kids, doctor bills, specialist bills, insurance companies, hurricanes, vet bills, a recent car accident, car rental company, family members and who knows what else...I'm pretty stressed by the time I find time to squeeze in a range session.

Edit:: Forgot to add earthquake...we had our first tremors felt here (4.6 from the Va quake) in my lifetime.

 

[harrygunner]

I'm always visualizing the BG(s), incoming rounds, innocents nearby or running toward the line of fire, chaotic surroundings as I practice. That's one thing I've never experienced that will be happening if the "event" ever happens with me.

 

[ColtPythonElite]

As part of training, I have had to run, do push-ups, jumping jacks, been pepper sprayed, and have people yell at me to cause confusion, plus a few other things I'm sure I've forgotten....All of these change generally change your shooting. For me, shooting nice little groups are out the window. A nice big group center mass in a B21 target with no shots outside the line is the goal.

 

[Ben86]

For me, shooting nice little groups are out the window. A nice big group center mass in a B21 target with no shots outside the line is the goal.

That's exactly what I want. Stress that makes tiny groups impossible. I feel that would better prepare for an actual SD incident. I've read about one shooting school in which instructors spray water in your face, yell at you and pull on you from different directions while you try to make your shots. That sounds pretty effective. I'll have to ask my range buddies if they'll do that to me, they'll probably just look at me like I'm crazy and laugh. Their idea of training is more like target practice.

 

[ACP]

I would also like to add that stress -- fear of stress and the loss of fine motor coordination -- is what caused me to sell my 1911 pattern pistols and carry only DAO semiautos or revolvers.

Perhaps if I has purchased one 1911 20 years ago and only carried that I would be used to sweeping the thumb safety and depressing the grip safety perfectly everytime.

But in my stress-induced practice at the indoor range, I couldn't do that every time. So now I only carry "grab, point, squeeze trigger" guns.

But that's just me.

 

[Shadow 7D]

In the army they had a saying, slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

usually induced stress were things like doing stressful exercises before the lane, such as a shortened PT test or an obstacle course, where the first one done got an advantage and the last ones were punished, or combatives bouts then onto the lane.

That or doing night infiltration lanes with LIVE FIRE and TRACERS going over you heads, there was a big todo if someone went to there knees he was to be taken down, that and the Drill Sergeants talking about the guy 3 cycles ago who got his brains blown out.... yeah, and it was run in 17* weather, with you going UNDER water to get through the barbed wire...

 

[Deaf Smith]

Lately I've been experimenting with inducing mental and or physical stress before shooting at my range to add a new challenging element to my training and keep from sticking to just lackadaisical "square range training." Before I go to shoot I might go for an intense run, do enough pull ups or push ups to make my arms tired and twitchy, or spin around a bit before picking the gun up and shooting the target. I know that last one sounds ridiculous and unsafe, but I promise it is not unsafe (but it does look ridiculous).

Does anyone else try to induce stress before training? If so what works? What do you think about this approach?

Just get a cloths pin and attach it to one of your nipples.

Smarts a might and does give you lots of stress.

And it's cheap.

Deaf

 

[Ben86]

Just get a cloths pin and attach it to one of your nipples.

Smarts a might and does give you lots of stress.

And it's cheap.

Deaf

I was thinking C-clamps.

How about wearing a rubber band on your wrist and giving yourself a good pop for every flyer you shoot. I might try giving my wife a dollar for every flyer. Then again I'm so used to her taking my money it might not have much of an effect. LOL

 

[Shadow 7D]

Naw, set off mouse traps with your fingers (if you're fast it may not get you) for every flyer

 

[NMGonzo]

I would also like to add that stress -- fear of stress and the loss of fine motor coordination -- is what caused me to sell my 1911 pattern pistols and carry only DAO semiautos or revolvers.

Perhaps if I has purchased one 1911 20 years ago and only carried that I would be used to sweeping the thumb safety and depressing the grip safety perfectly everytime.

But in my stress-induced practice at the indoor range, I couldn't do that every time. So now I only carry "grab, point, squeeze trigger" guns.

But that's just me.

Know your limitations.

 

[conw]

I think high stress full tilt training should be done FOF style, and while FOF should comprise a lot of your training (particularly NON gun FOF, IMO, but that's a different topic) only maybe 3-5% of all your training should be full tilt, stress inoculation style, if that.

I have been posting a lot about Southnarc's classes and lessons I personally learned taking 3 (Armed Movement in Structures, Edged Weapon Overview, and Extreme Close Quarters Concepts). I think the most time-effective sane way to train is to use his class (or one just like it which I'm unaware of existing) to get a basic feel for your weak points, and take that class once or twice per year to cahrt your progress.

After taking ECQC (the most recent one I took) and getting my butt kicked intermittently just like everyone else who took it, I zeroed in on the following:

-Work on my gun handling skills to make them automatic and secondary to decision making processes about my external environment
-Take BJJ to ensure I can maintain mobility/consciousness (top priorities in the paradigm Shivworks' curriculum teaches)
-Work on "fighting fitness"

What I'm getting at here is, nothing I could legally, safely do outside of that classroom setting will come anywhere near the level of stress I experienced there. I will do some "higher pressure" training to lock in some skills as I build them, but don't believe it is necessary to patch up the holes exposed in my game by the class.

So basically you don't just throw stress in like you would some Mixed Up Salt on scrambled eggs.

You need to figure out what your priorities are, and whether you are even building the correct skill set and habits. Then you need to patch the holes. Patching the holes can be:

Visualization/mental programming
Dry fire and dry run type training (focusing on positioning, verbal skills, whatever)
"Hard skills" like martial arts, live fire, or another discipline useful to the goal within a goal (overall goal being survival, subgoal being improve self-defense, subgoals being patch up holes in your SD game)

When you are comfortable you have built the skill you need in the area you previously lacked it - and trust me, most everyone is lacking somewhere, and all the worse off if they are unaware or rationalizing - you go back to that butt-kicking class and test it, then start the process over.

 

[Averageman]

While in the military at Ft Hood the small arms ranges are arranged in a unique manner that would allow you to start at the Zero range and zero your M-4 then fire your pistol, then throw a grenade and finally fire your M-4 for qualification all on what would be a 5 to 6 mile circut.
I thought it would be a great training event, morale booster and unit by unit competition.
This was of course before 9/11, Afghanastan or Iraq.
The resounding "NO" must have echoed throughout III Corps. There was absolutely no support for this type of training as it was clearly too dangerous.


Geeze, wonder what they might think of that after a decade of everyone is an 11B and running and gunning is the way things are done?

 

[Slateman]

Jump rope and do pushups. Actually, you could set up a circuit course.

 

[Ben86]

Jump rope and do pushups. Actually, you could set up a circuit course.

That's a great idea. I could set up targets far distances apart that require running to each target area.

 

[Mudinyeri]

If you train with friends, you can have them chuck small rocks at you (from a safe location). It really helps with cover awareness. (They have to stop throwing at you when you're behind cover relative to your target.) You can do the same thing with paintball guns if your friends aren't very accurate with rocks.

 

[AKElroy]

I practice jumping out of the truck to shoot pigs so that I can, well, get better at jumping out of the truck to shoot pigs.