dry fire too much?

[skargoh]

Hello all,

This is my first shooting related post here. Last year, I was prepping for a gssf shoot (so far, these are the only comps I have done). I dry fired everyday for a month before. I would practice on poster boards that I had drawn targets on.

Near the end of the month, I started feeling that my finger joints were getting sore, as if from over use.

Is this common? Should I think about building in recovery days as if I were weightlifting? Or just work through it till I am stronger?

Thanks

[Skydiver]

The recommendations I've heard/read was to dryfire daily, but limit to only about 15 minutes a day. I'm lucky to get about 30 minutes a week.

[lumpygravy]

How many hours a day are/were you dry firing? I'm sure you could do enough over the course of a month that you'd feel some repetitive stress pain. Like anything else, it can be done to excess.

[monicataliani]

The recommendations I've heard/read was to dryfire daily, but limit to only about 15 minutes a day.

Oh no!!!!! I totally am in trouble then.... I have been known to do literally hours of dry fire! LOL!

[skargoh]

I'd say an hour or 1.5 sometimes per day.

The pain or soreness wasn't horrible, but by the end of the month, it just felt like maybe I was overdoing it. I got nervous, being close to the match, so I stopped.

Lately I haven't been into pistols, for a few months, so haven't really done a bunch. Now I have the bug again and have about 2 months till a few local events kick up.

[RangerTrace]

If you have a tendency to over grip your pistol and dry fire too much along with an exercise program, you can certainly start to develop pain in your hands and forearms. Limit your dryfire to 30 minutes a day. Go for perfect, high quality repetitions, rather than lots of less than perfect repetitions.

[XRe]

If you have a tendency to over grip your pistol and dry fire too much along with an exercise program, you can certainly start to develop pain in your hands and forearms. Limit your dryfire to 30 minutes a day. Go for perfect, high quality repetitions, rather than lots of less than perfect repetitions.

This... and, Google for some forearm, arm, and shoulder stretches and mobility exercises. Sounds like an overuse/RSI type of situation, and frequently doing some mobility work before and after each session will help relieve some of it.

And, if you're just doing dryfire volume without being certain that your skills are spot on, you're just building bad habits... I always found that frequent, short sessions were better than long ones - once you fatigue, you're not getting anything worthwhile done...

[ummm]

Never thought about the physical aspects of dryfiring too much...been worried about the mental ones! I've been thinking I shouldn't dryfire until I really, really get "live" fire down pretty good.

I've been dryfiring about an hour a day, and my fear is that as a total beginner, I'll imbed bad habits since I don't really know what "real" shooting is like yet.

For example, drill which says, "Draw and get a 'good enough' sight picture". Well, until you've shot enough "real" rounds to know what a "good enough" sight picture actually looks like, you risk practicing with an insufficiently good sight picture, or one that is too good, I suppose. Result: training scar.

Do most shooters develop their "real" shooting skills to a certain point before getting into dryfiring? If so, what is that point?

[Steve Anderson]

Dry fire, especially with iron sights, can be very damaging if not balanced with an appropriate amount of live fire.

However, if you are seeing what you need to see for every drill, you should generally be ok as long as you have a strong " see what I need to see" match mentality.

It sounds like our op may not know what he needs to see...

And by the way, the drill probably says " acceptable" sight picture.

Sounds like some live fire is in order.

[skargoh]

I do need a more srructured routine.

Will work on that.

But what I have done and do now is try to familiatize myself with the subtlties of my triggers. I pull them slowly and steadily feeling every little grit or creep. Trying to break them with little or no disruption to the sights.

I sometimes balance coins atop the front sights and pull the trigger without moving the coin.

After that, I will sight in at stickers on a distant wall (as ifthey were a plate rack). I will go from low ready to first shot, holster to first shot, then to last shot.

I try to focus on a crisp, still front sight, with the best sight picture I can.

Then I will turn on the tv. I will pick a random word to listen for, like "The." When I hear "the" I will draw and sight my dryfire target as quickly as possible. I just do this because I don't want to get too focused on my beep. In other words, just to stay alert.

Anyway, I really need to read a book or two. Most of the stuff I do is just my own creations. I am a decent shot, but not a competitor. I would like to change that.

[JimmyZip]

Yeah, I really like to dry fire, and now I incorporate a lot of movement drills into the mix also. I notice on occasion that my right thumb joint will hurt from practicing reloads too much. When I first started, it was my left elbow from reaching back for the mags on my belt all the time. That has gone away finally though. Ibupofren can be your friend.

JZ

[RangerTrace]

Dry fire, especially with iron sights, can be very damaging if not balanced with an appropriate amount of live fire.

However, if you are seeing what you need to see for every drill, you should generally be ok as long as you have a strong " see what I need to see" match mentality.

It sounds like our op may not know what he needs to see...

And by the way, the drill probably says " acceptable" sight picture.

Sounds like some live fire is in order.

I learned this the hard way last year, when I was working out of town a lot. I was determined to continue my dry fire routine in my hotel room. Unfortunately it was not bright enough in the room and I trained myself to target focus, because I wasn't able to get sharp front sight focus on every "shot".

[ummm]

Dry fire, especially with iron sights, can be very damaging if not balanced with an appropriate amount of live fire.

Steve, since you are the expert in this area, can you estimate what would be a minimum ratio (for beginners, if the ratio is different once you become an expert/master/etc) of live fire to dry fire so as to avoid "very damaging" effects?

For example, should a beginner be live firing at least once for every dry fire session? One live fire for every 10 dry fire sessions? 10 live fires to every dry fire?

If you've never looked into this, I apologize for putting you on the spot, but if you don't know, I'm guessing no one does.

[Steve Anderson]

That's kind of you to say and as it happens I do know... For me.

It's more important in the beginning and it really depends on your temperament.

If you have learned to call your shots and have the visual patience to do that at matches, you could get away with one live fire session per week.

If you're just starting out you'd need at least 2 live fire sessions per week with daily or twice daily dry fire.

When I was progressing really quickly in open I did as follows;

Monday: 1 hr dry fire am, 1 hr pm

Tuesday: 500 rds live fire am, 1 hr dry fire pm

Wednesday : same as Monday

Thursday: same as Tuesday

Friday: same as Monday

Saturday: any match I could find

Sunday : same as Saturday

I have not yet become the iron sight shooter I'd like to be, but when I decide to become a production gm I'll start with that schedule then adjust as needed.

So, to answer your question more succinctly, I'd say that a developing shooter (and we all are) should constantly self analyze and adjust our training accordingly.

For example, I spent an hour a day last month rebuilding my surrender draw cause I wanted to beat the local steel hotshot and my draw was holding me back. Done.

Now I need to get my transitions tightened up.

I'm pretty sure that won't be a problem.

I'm gonna get myself a 5.25 here shortly, then that production G card is mine. Why the new gun? I wanna support Springfield and canyon creek, and the new gun will help motivate me to do the work.

Structure

Schedule

Self-analysis

Hope that helps.

I blame the new iPhone for any temporary typos btw...

SA

[RangerTrace]

Good stuff Steve.......

[XRe]

Just to contrast what Steve presented, for me it worked out quite well without live firing at anywhere near that frequency. In fact, I made A class with very little in the way of live fire, and made M without a whole lot of additional live fire. That wasn't really due to a conscious choice on my part - I simply didn't have the cash to shoot a whole lot at first (and still really don't).

It worked for me because I was very careful about calling my shots in dry fire accurately, and slowing my pace down to insure I completed each skill perfectly - and only very gradually upped the speed. Note - I was doing the bulk of this work a long time before Steve released his books, and wasn't using par times as he describes. Were I to do it over again, I'd leverage a plan similar to what he describes - using a par time to push on a skill is simple, but genius I was given some really good advice by a number of folks on how to approach dry fire at that point in my development, and it worked out well for me.

The other thing that I did that helped my progress in dry fire was that I didn't stand and do hours and hours of dry fire in a row (that can easily lead to fatigue and lack of focus, which then results in doing exactly what Steve's warning about above). Instead, I'd do a half hour or so a day of really solid repetitions. With my temperament, that keeps me from getting bored and burned out, and keeps me doing the work.

Steve's advice to "know thyself" is spot on - and the difference in our experiences shows it clearly

That said, I've found that as I've progressed, I have a greater need for live fire in my routine. There are, in fact, in certain holes that develop in your game without that exposure - even if your shot calling is solid in dry fire, you don't end up with the same sorts of pressures that live fire puts on your skills, and tendencies to do things like not follow through, or to rush don't tend to show up (for me) in dry fire as emphatically (even if your dry fire is 100% honest and solid, there are always going to be mental differences between the two).

If things had been different, and I'd had a much less limited budget and more time, yeah, live fire would've been much more helpful, for sure, and I probably would've progressed much more quickly. But, based on my experiences, I wouldn't agree that proper dry fire without an accompanying live fire component is damaging - I'd say there's a limit as to how much benefit you'll get without doing both, for sure, though.

[usmc0326]

Hello all,

This is my first shooting related post here. Last year, I was prepping for a gssf shoot (so far, these are the only comps I have done). I dry fired everyday for a month before. I would practice on poster boards that I had drawn targets on.

Near the end of the month, I started feeling that my finger joints were getting sore, as if from over use.

Is this common? Should I think about building in recovery days as if I were weightlifting? Or just work through it till I am stronger?

Thanks

You can actually train to much. It's called repetitive motion injury. Dry firing in general like anything else is a great method of practicing without actually spending money on rounds. Before we go to the range we start with dry fire to work on the fundamentals (especially for Rifle/ Pistol qualification). There are different types of pain, either way you should listen when your body tells you something is wrong. Muscles being sore is different than joints being sore and swollen. If you limit your training toward quality not quantity you may get better results with no injury. Usually I keep the edge by using commercials to practice draw strokes at the buzzer, firing at a point and re holstering. At first 1.5 is a good benchmark, work up to less than 0.9.

Edited March 28, 2012 by usmc0326

[burnjus]

That partcular repetative motion can tighten up the retinaculum surrounding your median nerve (the nerve that supplies much of your intrinsic hand muscles) Since trigger pull mostly works on strengthening your flexors (inside of your forearm), you need to do something that will equally strengthen your extensors (back of your forearm) to even out pressures being put on muscle tendons and ligaments. This is so you dont get things like tendonitis and Carpal Tunnel syndrome.

[Vash1023]

So what type of excercise would work for that muscle group?

[cpa5oh]

A thought from someone who isn't a good shooter but has alot of experience in the gym moving heavy weight - imbalances often cause injuries. Do some work moving your fingers in the opposite direction as a trigger pull - hold your hand in such a way that all of your fingers and thumb are touching (like you are about to start the hand gesture you'd do to illustrate a person running their mouth too much,) wrap multiple gum bands around your fingers/thumb around the nail area, and extend your fingers and thumb (i.e., open up your hand against resistance.) This has helped me overcome golfers elbow and other hand pain issues.