How do you get your stong hand to relax when firing?

[ger]

I have read to get about 30-40% of grip on my strong hand and the rest of the grip on my off hand and when I concentrate I can do it but under speed and pressure of shooting I put the death grip on it. I shoot decent but I gather from the research here it is not going to be the best for the long haul and advancement. Now I seem to have another reason to learn...my right wrist seems to get a nerve pinch or cramp when I hold the gun a certain way and apply a lot of pressure.

So is this just a lot of rounds down range and super concentration or is there some kinda hint to speed the process up?

[Pezco]

I'm guessing the short answer is practice. I highly recommend using a grip strengthening tool like Captains of Crush to help with your grip pressure and pinched nerves in your arms.

[AWLAZS]

I think its the way the pressure is applied to the grip that makes the biggest difference. When you sit there and think about which hand is applying what percentage of the grip strength it makes it hard to do. I find it is much easier to explain and demonstrate how it feels.

What most people try to do is crush the gun with their off hand to get strong hand to relax. Its not all about the squeeze. If you put your hands in the correct position your support hand cams off of the fingers in your strong hand. With your support thumb pointed at the target and your arms and elbows in the right position it makes most of the grip strength for you. You will feel the fingertips of your strong hand in the palm of your weak hand.

Check your pm

[CocoBolo]

Dry fire. It is amazing how much a few hundred thousand repetitions can do. And your arms and hands get a little stronger each time. You have to hurt musle to build muscle.

[G-ManBart]

I have read to get about 30-40% of grip on my strong hand and the rest of the grip on my off hand and when I concentrate I can do it but under speed and pressure of shooting I put the death grip on it. I shoot decent but I gather from the research here it is not going to be the best for the long haul and advancement. Now I seem to have another reason to learn...my right wrist seems to get a nerve pinch or cramp when I hold the gun a certain way and apply a lot of pressure.

So is this just a lot of rounds down range and super concentration or is there some kinda hint to speed the process up?

The whole percentage thing is flawed as my 40% is your 50% is somebody else's 60%. Our hands and bodies, in general, work more based on movement than pressure. If I tell you to move your finger 1/4", that's pretty easy for anybody to figure out. If I tell you to press with X pounds of force, it won't go so well! Grip the gun as firm as you can, without putting extra tension into your trigger finger. The support hand can obviously grip harder, but look at pictures of the best shooters and you can see quite a bit of tension in both forearms...they're gripping the gun pretty hard. Building up your grip strength will let you grip harder without messing up your trigger press. R,

[open17]

Try concentrating on gripping the gun harder with the middle finger of the strong hand. Has the effect of actually loosening the overall strong hand grip,

and helps break the tendency to change grip intensity when pulling the trigger.

Sounds a little weird, but it worked for me. Along with a few thousand dry fire repetitions.

FWIW, YMMV, etc.

Edited June 19, 2010 by open17

[lugnut]

Grip the gun as firm as you can, without putting extra tension into your trigger finger. The support hand can obviously grip harder, but look at pictures of the best shooters and you can see quite a bit of tension in both forearms...they're gripping the gun pretty hard. Building up your grip strength will let you grip harder without messing up your trigger press. R,

This is something that I wish I new years ago. I do believe that this is the key to making good medium to long tough shots for sure. I think you can get away with less grip is some cases but not in most USPSA matches where shooting fast AND accurate is so important.

[el pres]

What I do is present the gun with the weak hand. However this is still going to take thousands of repetitions in dryfire to become your subconcious grip. If you do it correctly only a few dozens times in dryfire and think your good to go as soon as the adrenaline of a real match sets in, you "will" revert to your old grip.

What I mean by present ? Draw the gun with your strong hand and bring it to the meeting point where your weak hand joins the gun. At this point [consciously](only in the begining) grip, wrap, the strong hand and gun with your weak hand and push the whole unit out with the weak hand to eye level. Even more important is to perform this correctly during a reload, mag is pushed in, then wrap, and finally push out (present) with the weak hand. dryfire, dryfire, dryfire...

Over time, power and control developes in the weak hand automatically loosening that strong hand death grip..

Edited June 19, 2010 by el pres

[ger]

all great ideas to try, it appears the common denominator is DRY FIRE. I was hoping that was not going to be it, as it seems after 12 hr work days six days a week and then doing the chores that need getting done this time is hard to find for me, which I am sure it is for many of us.

I do not know if this is just me but the part about dry firing I hate the most believe it or not is going to change out current belt to velcro inner outer

[Flexmoney]

I suspect the issue, in a number of cases, is that...in the shooter's mind...the thought process is that:

"I need to control the recoil." "I need to hold onto the gun." "I hold onto the gun with the strong hand."

That doesn't work for me. As the strong hand tightens up in anticipation of recoil, that often tenses the trigger finger.

What worked for me...and I learned shooting a 24oz gun with 190pf ammo...was to realize that I could hold onto the gun and return it to target with my off-hand. That allowed me to relax my strong hand a bit...especially at the moment of recoil, where I would also be actuating the trigger.

For me, dry-fire wouldn't help unless I first changed my outlook.

Oh...and this assumes some form of ISO grip and stance. If you are in a Weaver, then the strong hand/arm gets tasked with most all of the work.

[lugnut]

I don't see how dry fire can help this. Flex what did you do specifically that allowed you to realize you could support the gun with the support hand?

I try to grip more with my weak hand but in matches I know I'm not maintaining that strength in my support hand for some reason. Maybe it just takes time...

[Flexmoney]

Flex what did you do specifically that allowed you to realize you could support the gun with the support hand?

I suppose I ...missed a lot/didn't get the speed/performance... doing it the other way and realized it was dumb for me to keep doing that.

I went in search of better ways to try.

[bubbadoc]

I grip with the middle finger of the strong hand, but then really think about the weak hand. Humans can't really multitask, so slipping the thought process to the weak hand before thinking about the squeeze works best for me when I am ... messing up....

Always work the grip. I like the Gripmaster as it works all of the fingers with separate springs. I have two of the extra strong. One at work and one at home/ for travel so that I can do some hand strengthening every day.

[rgkeller]

Relax the bicep of the strong hand

[Putty]

I have read to get about 30-40% of grip on my strong hand and the rest of the grip on my off hand and when I concentrate I can do it but under speed and pressure of shooting I put the death grip on it. I shoot decent but I gather from the research here it is not going to be the best for the long haul and advancement. Now I seem to have another reason to learn...my right wrist seems to get a nerve pinch or cramp when I hold the gun a certain way and apply a lot of pressure.

So is this just a lot of rounds down range and super concentration or is there some kinda hint to speed the process up?

The whole percentage thing is flawed as my 40% is your 50% is somebody else's 60%. Our hands and bodies, in general, work more based on movement than pressure. If I tell you to move your finger 1/4", that's pretty easy for anybody to figure out. If I tell you to press with X pounds of force, it won't go so well! Grip the gun as firm as you can, without putting extra tension into your trigger finger. The support hand can obviously grip harder, but look at pictures of the best shooters and you can see quite a bit of tension in both forearms...they're gripping the gun pretty hard. Building up your grip strength will let you grip harder without messing up your trigger press. R,

How do you then deal with grip tension transmission (through to the forearms) where it is not affecting body or shoulder tension? The reason I ask is from videos reviews where fellow shooters say I look tense and to relax, have been instances where my grip tension seems to become and overall body event.

[G-ManBart]

How do you then deal with grip tension transmission (through to the forearms) where it is not affecting body or shoulder tension? The reason I ask is from videos reviews where fellow shooters say I look tense and to relax, have been instances where my grip tension seems to become and overall body event.

Wow, that's a great question! Honestly, I've never thought of it that way before, but I think it's very likely a pretty individualized thing. I'm going to have to chew on this one for a while, but I think it's definitely worth exploring. R,