Locking Wrist and Elbow Tendons?

[Religious Shooter]

I was looking at this Seeklander video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KnA3SD8IYA

Everything is familiar to me except for the part about locking your tendons.

Can you guys expound on this?

What does it mean to lock your wrist and elbow tendons? How do you go about doing it? What does it feel like?

Thanks.

[ZackJones]

Interesting video. You could clearly see a big difference in his grip. I posted a question asking him to explain it.

[bountyhunter]

Fine for younger guys but us older ones can't stress the tendons like that and expect to be able to keep shooting. You see enough threads about people with tennis elbow (which is tendonitis).

[mgardner]

You can only put as much tension on the muscles and tendons that you can maintain throughout the course of fire. Any more than that and your grip will vary as you tire or get sore and you won't hit much. Then like was mentioned, the possibility of injury.

[Jshuberg]

I believe what he is talking about is pre-tensioning the wrist and forearm muscles against the direction the gun recoils. This has the effect of turning your grip into a spring, where the muzzle flips up, and then returns back to where it came from without any additional effort or motion. I think his description of "locking the tendons" is a poor description, since you don't actually lock them, you pre-tension them.

I also noticed that at 3:13 he tapped on his shoulder while described using "big dumb muscles" to apply pressure to the gun. I don't presume to speak for him, but I believe that what he was hinting at was that he was using his shoulders, rather than his hand muscles to establish his firm grip on the gun. This is something that shouldn't be overlooked!

For those not familiar with the technique, stand with arms outstretched with your hands about a foot apart with your thumbs pointed up in the air like Fonzie. Now turn your arms so that your thumbs are pointing towards each other, and that your elbows are pointing outward. You can rotate them more or less in place, you don't need to raise your shoulders to do this. Now put a gun in your hands. You'll notice that a a small amount of rotation at the shoulders translates into quite a bit of pressure on the gun. Rather than using hand muscles that are small and fatigue, you are using shoulder and bicep muscles that are large and strong. The only things your hand muscles have to do is to apply enough pressure that they don't peel apart at the bottom. Make sure you're rotating at the shoulders, and that your elbows turn outward the same amount your wrists turn inward. If you are rotating using forearm muscles, your doing it wrong and will fatigue sooner.

Like I said, I'm inferring from that 5 second blip during the video that this is where the strength required for his grip is coming from. It requires almost fully outstretched arms, which is a good idea anyway so that the recoil impulse travels through the skeletal system disperses into the torso of the body, reducing the amplitude of the recoil pulse to the minimum. Not only can you control the pressure your hands place on your gun by the amount of inward rotation of the shoulders, but that when your wrist and forearms are properly pre-tensioned, that you can actually change where the front sight returns to by making minor adjustments in the inward rotation of the shoulders.

If the front sight comes back a little high, turn both shoulders inward a few degrees more. If it's coming back to low, let up on the inward pressure a little. If it's coming back to the left, a little more angle on one shoulder or the other should pull it back in - providing your grip is more or less uniform around the pistol. Using these techniques together - controlling grip strength from the shoulders, pre-tensioning wrists and forearms against recoil, and learning how to control the location the front sight returns to, this will result in the front sight returning to where to almost exactly where it came from each and every shot without any additional effort or muscle movements. The gun will simply return to where it came like a spring with a very high degree of accuracy.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Jshuberg

[bountyhunter]

"Tendons connect muscle to bone. These tough yet flexible bands of fibrous tissue attach the skeletal muscles to the bones they move. Essentially, tendons enable you to move; think of them as intermediaries between muscles and bones. "

If you pre load muscles as described (whether calling it locking tendons, pre tensioning or whatever) it puts strain on the tendons. Younger guys, and guys with healthy tendons can get away with this but believe it: there will come a time and age where the tendons start howling and you will not be able to do this.

Guess how I learned that.

And the problem with tendonitis is it becomes chronic and hangs on for months (or years).

Edited January 15, 2014 by bountyhunter

[Jshuberg]

Have you found a technique for automatically returning the front sight back to where it came from without having to pre-tension your wrist/forearm muscles? I haven't through about it at all really, I've always been able to pre-tension my muscles without issue. Your post makes me wonder though - I am getting older...

If you spent time working on it, it's possible that if you establish a stance and grip where the maximum amount of recoil energy is transferred and dissipated into the body core, which reduces the amount of muzzle flip you'll have to manage, that inward pressure on your hands from your shoulders might be enough to properly manage recoil and muzzle flip. Never tried it though, and I think I'd have a hard time not pre-tensioning my muscles. It has occurred to me that basically managing recoil and muzzle flip is more about balance than strength - a person can balance a heavy item with much less effort than trying to muscle it in place. Shooting would be similar to lying on your back, gun pointed up in the air, and having someone drop a weight on the barrel, which then immediately falls back off. Your grip, how you orient your body behind the gun, how you balance the sudden increase of rearward force may be enough to properly manage shooting without utilizing much muscle tension at all.

Thanks for pointing this out, it's definitely something to think about and experiment with.

[45dotACP]

I would think that a forward weight bias would definitely help with that. A powerful weak hand grip. That said, Mike has proper balance and is preloading his arms. This would tend (hehehehe) to give him better recoil control. Just keep those muscles strong and active and avoid fluoroquinilone antibiotics (they will eat your tendons up and leave you vulnerable). At some point you just won't be as good at it.

[bountyhunter]

Most of the recommended stances and grips use pre tensioning. Even the lean forward (getting your nose over your toes) will load the calf muscles and achilles tendons to counter the imbalance caused by moving your CM forward.

In the arms whenever you feel tension, it means one muscle group is tensioning against a different muscle group. Since nothing is moving, any force applied in one direction by one muscle must be offset by another muscle.

I think it's like tightening the guide wires on an antenna mast to hold it securely. The problem of tendonitis may come or maybe not. YMMV. But it comes most often in the areas that get stressed by other activities which are the wrists and elbows. But once they start, they can become chronic and are very hard to treat.

Edited January 16, 2014 by bountyhunter

[Sac Law Man]

If you grip the gun with a firm grip and roll your forearms inward you will feel what Mike is talking about.. Its the same thing Vogel does.

[45dotACP]

Well, tendinitis itself isn't terribly difficult to treat. You simply give it a rest for a few weeks, stop overdoing it, and take some painkillers like Aspirin or Advil.

Tendinosis (the cause of tennis elbow) is generally the tough one to treat. It's not an inflammatory disease so anti-inflammatory medicine won't help much. Physical therapy is generally a good idea for something like that. The best option (especially for people who use their forearm muscles as much as competitive shooters) would be to strengthen the muscles of the forearm, arm, shoulder, and back. All of these will help to stabilize the elbow joint and reduce your likelihood for developing something like tennis elbow. Found an interesting study about wrist strengthening exercises actually....

http://www.thera-bandacademy.com/elements/clients/docs/Tyler%20et%20al%20JSES%202010__201009DD_123442.pdf

I'm not a physical therapist of course, but I would always recommend the services of one. They would know more about this than I would.

[sigsauerfan]

a good shape of the upper body ( abs , shoulder, forearms) is required to keep the pressure even over a full course like he does. also like some said not everyones carries an optimum shape ; this technique is one among others , fine if you can handle it over long runs,luckily there's other way to achieve consistent accuracy ; although it doesn't means they're easier to master

[REDPANDA]

This technique would tire someone who is not as toned or has less muscle mass. Takes training to make this effective.

[Jshuberg]

It doesn't really take much brute force strength at all to make it work. If you mainly use the muscles in your shoulders and upper arms to apply pressure to the gun, you can do this for a much longer period of time than if you were primarily using your hand or forearm muscles. Your elbows should rotate out as you turn your thumbs inward. If they don't, you're rotating at the forearm and not the shoulder.

Pre-tensioning can easily be done incorrectly as well. You have muscles above your forearm that will rotate your wrists up, and muscles underneath that will rotate your wrist down. When most people pre-tension their forearms to create a spring for recoil control, they activate both sets of muscles. Essentially, they lock their wrist in place by having the muscles above and below their forearm pull against each other. While this works, it requires more effort than is necessary. The gun only recoils in one direction, so the muscles you really want to pre-tension are the ones under the forearm. Think about it this way, all you want to do is to take up the slack both above and below your forearm, and then apply just a small amount more to the muscles underneath. You don't want to create a death choke with your forearm muscles, it isn't necessary. Your muscles don't need to be fighting each other trying to move your wrist in opposite directions.

It's all about technique. Keeping the arms straight, and surrendering yourself to the recoil and letting it travel through your arms to your body core minimizes the amount of recoil you have to manage at the gun. Using your shoulder and arm muscles to rotate your hands inward focuses the pressure in your hands to be focused high up on the tang of the gun, rather than spread out uniformly across the grip, which further minimizes muzzle flip. Pre-tensioning your forearms against the recoil allows the gun to return back to where it came from when the recoil pulse subsides. All three things work in concert together and require very little brute force strength. Don't try to eliminate recoil, let it happen and learn how to manage it. Recoil is the dance that you and your gun are performing together, it requires finesse, not brute strength to manage. Use the recoil to your advantage, the way a dancer uses gravity. Also, don't try to eliminate muzzle flip - you actually want a little flip as it makes tracking the front sight through recoil easier to do. The smaller the movement of the front sight during a shot, the more the mind will try to optimize away the transition to the effects of chronostasis. An inch or so of muzzle flip is perfectly fine. The goal is not to eliminate muzzle flip, but to return the sights back to where they came from automatically.

Brute force is easier, but also prone to flinches and fatigue. Proper technique takes more time to learn, but takes less effort and is more elegant.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Jshuberg

[TheDude27]

Thanks Jshuberg,

This was very helpful, I've been struggling to a) grip without steering the gun, b> to apply each side grip with the right amount of force. I've been gripping straight back with my hands (squeeze fingers into fist), if I tried to pinch more (inward pressure) I would lock up my shoulders or straighten my arms too much(applying force using my shoulders which is no good). I didnt think about rotating them. This seems much easier to accomplish correctly (it seems easier to rotate without completely tensing up or locking out my arms) as well as it really gives what feels like a more positive grip without apply as much conscious force. This seems to feel a lot more natural and it feels like I'm holding the gun a lot more securely and exerting less force than before.

Edited February 3, 2014 by TheDude27

[prairiefire]

These are good points - I think that I have always tried to stop the recoil at the wrist/elbow area - but perhaps relaxing my death drip and allowing the recoil forces to propel themselves longitudinally to the shoulder would reduce my perception of recoil and help with target reacquisition. For me, as an older shooter, I am always looking for an acceptable adaptation that keeps the fun in shooting and age related frustrations to a minimum.