Using a wrist brace?

[egd]

All the "experts" say lock your wrist (gun hand) while shooting. This is something I really have trouble with. I can sort of do it when I am just slowly standing and shooting in practice. At least I THINK I can, I"m not even sure what IS a locked wrist. But when the buzzer goes off and you're shooting and moving and trying to get sights on the target and,etc, etc. I know my grip goes to pot.
Has anyone tried some type of a wrist brace and if so, how did it work. And a link or pic to a specific type would be great, I searched a little and there's a lot of different styles and brands out there.

 

[ny32182]

I think you'd be better served by just practicing until you are maintaining a better grip through the stage.

Dryfire should be helpful here. Live fire, maybe take it slow and concentrate on not moving your wrists until it feels a bit more natural. Remember the goal is to get the sights aligned and then pull the trigger straight back without disturbing the sights. If you are moving your wrists before the shot breaks, obviously that is bad for sight alignment. If you are moving them after the shot breaks, at best, your recoil control is likely not going to be nearly as good as it could be.

"Locked wrist" just means that you are not bending (or moving) your wrists while pulling the trigger, or during recoil. You can see how the doofus in this video is not flexing his wrist during shooting; any motion is (hopefully) being generated only by recoil.

 

[Sam1911]

Unless you have a physical problem that dramatically reduces your strength or joint stability, I don't think you need a wrist brace.

I'm not sure what experts have told you to lock your wrist, but that isn't really part of the description I give when teaching anyone to shoot handguns. I've never found a need to. When I explain the draw, acquiring a proper firing grip, the press-out, and where to go with an Isosceles form, the wrists seems to take care of themselves.

If you're concentrating on the front sight and clean trigger control, I find that recoil management and wrist stability seem to happen on their own.

 

[ATLDave]

I would consider it significant - not necessarily conclusive, but dang close - evidence that, to my knowledge, zero high level competitive shooters in the practical shooting disciplines use such a device.

 

[Sam1911]

... zero high level competitive shooters in the practical shooting disciplines use such a device.

Or for that matter, mid, low, mid-high, average, above average, or in-between ones do either!

Really, in many years of practical shooting as a competitor, safety officer, and match director, I can think of about one time or two times I ever saw anyone using anything like that. You'd need to have some very compelling physical problem to need it.

 

[ATLDave]

Agreed. Although the "everybody/nobody does it" isn't quite as compelling to me as "everybody/nobody who is objectively the best does it." Until you remember that "everybody" includes the "best," as well as the average and the bad. But people hear "everybody" and think of the mean or median shooter, not the best.

But, yeah, I'm with you. If there were an advantage to be generally gained by the use of such a device, it seems likely that someone would have experimented and discovered that by now. It's possible that everyone has just missed this easy advancement. But an afternoon at the range with a few shooters, a wrist brace, and a timer would probably suffice to put this to rest.

 

[tarosean]

Are you sure you're getting a correct grip at speed and not just slapping your hands on the gun?

 

[egd]

Well, OK, it was just a thought. I know that grip is my worst problem and I thought that might help me a little. And frankly, dry firing just doesn't help that much. It's when the gun goes off that I know if I've gripped tight enough.

 

[Sam1911]

I guess I might be belaboring the point but how do you know that grip is your worst problem? What is telling you that?

Hearing that makes me think there's something else going on because I don't see shooters around me complaining about their grip or wrist position being too weak. It's a little hard to visualize what you're experiencing. Are you able to see the sight on the target as you press the trigger? Does the gun move in recoil and settle back to more or less the same place you were aiming when you fired?


I guess a good summation of my question is exactly what you said yourself, " I"m not even sure what IS a locked wrist." I'm not either and I wouldn't tell anyone that locked wrists are important.

I DO understand what position "locked elbows" describes, and you shouldn't be doing that either!

 

[tarosean]

Can you have someone take a picture of you gripping your gun?

i.e.




You can see how my wrist to arm is in a straight line. While it's technically not locked, recoil will push straight back and mitigate flipping.

 

[egd]

Yeah Tarosean, that's the problem--"at speed". It's easy to do it standing in the garage. It's when you have to aim and shoot and move ,etc. that my grip just goes away.

 

[Sam1911]

Goes away? Goes where? What happens to it? Are your sights on target when you press the trigger or not? How are you conscious of what your wrists are doing?

 

[egd]

Oh I'm sure there are other things I don't do as well as I should too. But as you all say, it's getting the gun to come straight back and not "flop" around that's the problem. Or my biggest problem anyway. On the times when I feel like I have accomplished that I can tell it's a better shot. I thought maybe a wrist brace of some type might help me to concentrate more on my grip as I'm moving through a stage.
Sam, to answer your question, no, it doesn't unless I do get a strong grip and feel like my strong hand has sort of a locked wrist. Again I'm not sure how to accurately define locked, but hopefully you understand what I mean.
Maybe it's just a matter of needing a million more rounds to shoot through yet....

 

[ny32182]

If dryfire isn't helping, you somehow need to change the way you are doing it.
If you can slow fire and learn the feel of what is correct, then replicate that feel in dryfire, you should be able to dryfire until it is subconsciously correct every time. Any kind of practice should be done correctly most of the time in order to improve.
I agree pics or video would be helpful to see if you really are breaking your wrists up or down at any point in the process.

 

[egd]

I can't type as fast as you guys When I say goes away I mean just gets loose and the gun doesn't just go straight back.

 

[tarosean]

Yeah Tarosean, that's the problem--"at speed". It's easy to do it standing in the garage. It's when you have to aim and shoot and move ,etc. that my grip just goes away.

Then you need to keep practicing in the garage till your fundamentals are perfected. Your grip should be "set" while in the draw stroke, before you ever even present to the target.
A poor grip will result in Alpha/Mic Alpha/Mic etc.(-0/Points Down for the IDPA) or some other combination resulting in time penalties. Those penalties will add more time to your score than the time it takes to fix your grip before you fire.

Here is a good video.

 

[egd]

Humm, OK Tarosean, That gives me something to think about and work on-getting the grip established sooner. I can see that helping.

 

[Sam1911]

Videos can be great!

Here's another good one:

 

[ATLDave]

Have you measured your hand strength?

 

[Sunray]

Didn't look but I don't think any shooting game allows such a thing.
A locked wrist is one that doesn't move under recoil. With any centre fire pistol, your hand is the only thing that holds the frame still while the slide recoils. If your wrist moves it messes all of that up. It's called 'limp wristing' too. Easiest way to fix it is to do hand strengthening exercise. Done with a rubber ball cut in half or one of those grip strength thingys with the spring.

 

[ATLDave]

I couldn't find a prohibition against it in the USPSA rulebook, though it's possible I missed it.

Otherwise, yeah, working on grip strength can help with recoil control.

 

[Sam1911]

Just remember that the concept of what used to be called "recoil control" is now far out of fashion as a way to teach dynamic shooting. You can't control recoil. The gun's going to move. Trying to strangle it into submission is not really helpful. You can manage it, accept it, let it do its thing, and if you're practicing good form and are keeping your focus, the gun will move and come back to about where it was when it fired. Well enough to see that sight and get your next press in 0.2 of a second or so anyway.

 

[ATLDave]

Eh, I would say that views on that shifted, then shifted back again, then to and fro about 10 more times. When Brian Enos said that he didn't try to limit recoil as long as the sights returned (in his book from the 1980's), that was revolutionary. But most of the top practical shooting competitors now say that they are trying to grip the gun quite hard... hard neutral pressure.

I do think different things work for different people, but if you look at the guys who can shoot the gun really fast, they generally do manage to keep it pretty flat. And that means not letting it bounce around.

What certainly has gone away is the notion that some kind of push-pull, opposing-force thing is the way to go. That's now a distinct minority view.

 

[Sam1911]

Ok, I don't disagree with that. And yes, the push-pull idea has certainly faded.

I do recommend gripping the gun with a hard, encircling, neutral pressure. I guess I see that as different from trying to control recoil, but it could be said to be a cause/effect sort of thing. If your hands are positioned well (I like what Todd Jarrett says in the vid above) and you're firmly gripping (but not death-grip) the gun I believe it will recoil in a way that's predictable and lets you develop fluidity and quick follow up shots.

I guess that's part of why I'm having trouble with the question posed by the OP. If your hands are doing what they should, I have a hard time picturing the wrists really failing you.

 

[ATLDave]

I would agree with the notion that, for most people, the grip is far more likely to be the weak link in the chain of recoil control than ability to resist torquing with the wrists. Of course, a lot of the same forearm muscles and tendons are involved in both, so maybe it's just a covariant: if you've got strong hands, you will almost necessarily have strong wrists/forearms. If your hands are not strong, it's not likely that your wrists or forearms are strong, either.