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Do you warm up before a match? You should!


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My wife and I are using Anderson's books to train with. One of the things he talks about in his latest book is using the safe area to warm up before the match. Yesterday we did his Match warm up drills prior to the match. On the first stage we both felt more relaxed and ready. (all the dry firing helps for sure too).

So, if you don't have the book, just do some draw and sight picture work, then progress into draw and trigger press. We added some transition drills using rocks on the berm we were facing. Lastly, we did about 10 Burkett reloads. Holstered up and headed for Match brief.

Highly recommend it.

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I warm up pre match. But it involves running, and I'm fairly certain most gun loving Americans hate running.

unless it's very warm weather, I run for 5-10 mins to get my blood flowing to my hands. I am insufficiently insulated compared to most of my colleagues. Then I also do a few minutes of draws and trigger presses. I should probably throw in a few empty mag reloads.

Anyway, IMHO it's pretty dumb to NOT warm up before any kind of athletic contest.

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If possible I like to shoot 40-50 rounds just to shake the jitters out and get my confidence up, especially in the morning when I traditionally shoot worse. Unfortunately this isn't often possible. For Bianchi Cup, even when I'd shoot my first event at 8:30, I'd get up at 5:00am and run up to the public range a few miles away and shoot at like 6:30am, then go shoot the match.

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Jake, you should have been at a recent LII where it was asserted that Safety Areas are only for unbagging your gun and putting it in the holster; dry firing and such is inconsiderate and just wastes other shooters' time.

Guess he didn't read the rule book.

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You can feel however you want about it. I've put a significant amount of blood and sweat into this sport, and I take it more seriously than the vast majority of people on the range. A little dry fire helps me towards performing to the best of my ability and it is totally within the rules. I'll try to not get in your way, but I'm doing it whether it annoys you or not.

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If there's a line of people waiting to use the safe area and your there for xx min warming up your doing it wrong. Its nothing to do with the rules. It's just basic common courtesy.

Exactly, and if you're at a major match that's what the sight in / warm up bay is for.

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If there's a line of people waiting to use the safe area and your there for xx min warming up your doing it wrong. Its nothing to do with the rules. It's just basic common courtesy.

Exactly, and if you're at a major match that's what the sight in / warm up bay is for.

Do many matches have a warm up bay ? I've been to several state level matches and have never seen one. Great idea, BTW

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Well, no, it's not just "common courtesy" to deny someone the chance to use the Safety Area for its intended purposes, which, according to 2.4 of the rules. The host organization "is responsible for the construction and placement of a sufficient number of Safety Areas for the match", which are to be used by the competitors for various activities in preparation for the match, which are listed.

Although some may feel it's an inconvenience to put these up, once done they're there for future use. For an individual match It could be as simple as placing a folding table and outlining the safety area on the ground with lining paint. I've seen that done at several matches.

I'm with Jake here. Those who are serious about the match deserve that relatively small amount of time to prepare. After all, we're coming in cold and deserve time to warm up some, even if not "live". (And, to those who would say that it's "fair" for everyone to start totally cold, please refer back to 2.4) :bow:

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I understand the logic behind it, but people hogging up the safe area dry firing while I and everyone else is trying to get our gear on really annoys me.

you don't need a safe area to get your gear on. I put my gear on somewhere else and go to the safe area long enough to unbag my gun and put it in the holster.

If your range is really that limited on safe area space, then I would volunteer to coordinate an effort to expand that space to meet demand. it is awesome when there is some kind of warm up bay available, but in my experience that is a bit unusual.

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I dry fire at home before leaving for a match and then do warm-up draws in one of the safe areas before the match starts and between some of the stages. I can't say for sure how much it helps but I firmly believe it helps some, and some is better than nothing.

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I understand the logic behind it, but people hogging up the safe area dry firing while I and everyone else is trying to get our gear on really annoys me.

you don't need a safe area to get your gear on. I put my gear on somewhere else and go to the safe area long enough to unbag my gun and put it in the holster.

If your range is really that limited on safe area space, then I would volunteer to coordinate an effort to expand that space to meet demand. it is awesome when there is some kind of warm up bay available, but in my experience that is a bit unusual.

Yeah putting the gun on is what I meant. Everything else is done away from the safe area.

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If there's a line of people waiting to use the safe area and your there for xx min warming up your doing it wrong. Its nothing to do with the rules. It's just basic common courtesy.

Exactly, and if you're at a major match that's what the sight in / warm up bay is for.

Do many matches have a warm up bay ? I've been to several state level matches and have never seen one. Great idea, BTW

Every major I've shot in the past two years has had some form of live warm up bay. Maybe it's a southeast thing?

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If there's a line of people waiting to use the safe area and your there for xx min warming up your doing it wrong. Its nothing to do with the rules. It's just basic common courtesy.

Exactly, and if you're at a major match that's what the sight in / warm up bay is for.

Do many matches have a warm up bay ? I've been to several state level matches and have never seen one. Great idea, BTW

Every major I've shot in the past two years has had some form of live warm up bay. Maybe it's a southeast thing?

It must be, because from my memory I've seen exactly one in the midwest since 2002ish. Trust me, I'd love to be able to warm up with live fire before a match.

Edited by Jake Di Vita
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I like to warm up at a safe table. just getting a feel for the gun in my hand. practice a few draws etc. particularly with the open gun. I also find it especially useful to go the safe area and practice draws, some dry fire before a strong hand or weak hand stage. if I've been shooting a few stages freestyle and are warmed up it's nice to take a minute to re-awaken my strong hand/weak hand only index, draw etc. I see so many open shooters front up to SHO/WHO stages, draw and spend a LOT of time figuring out their index and looking for the dot. literally 1-2min of pre stage DF cures that for me.

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I like to warm up at a safe table. just getting a feel for the gun in my hand. practice a few draws etc. particularly with the open gun. I also find it especially useful to go the safe area and practice draws, some dry fire before a strong hand or weak hand stage. if I've been shooting a few stages freestyle and are warmed up it's nice to take a minute to re-awaken my strong hand/weak hand only index, draw etc. I see so many open shooters front up to SHO/WHO stages, draw and spend a LOT of time figuring out their index and looking for the dot. literally 1-2min of pre stage DF cures that for me.

I thought you warmed up with a smoke and a coffee?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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