When To Dryfire?

[Vlad]

I'm starting to dryfire more seriously then in the past, and I'm making an effort to fit it in my day to day schedule.

I have two questions:

1) When do you do your dryfire session, in the morning or at nite (I don't want to hear from you folks who don't have to go to work )? Leaving aside the "when I have time" issue, do you think that practicing in the morning or at nite makes a difference to the results of dryfire, a benefit, or a reduction in results.

2) Currently I'm trying to add dryfire to my morning pre-work schedule. On most mornings I work out for about 45min to an hour before I shower and get dressed for work. I'm trying to figure out if to do my dryfire session before or after my workout. I'm generarly more awake after my workout and more focused. However I'm also physicaly tiered after my workout. I wonder if that would be a good thing or a bad thing. I wonder if it would benefit me to practice while I have muscle fatigue to simulate match fatigue, or if I would get better results practicing with fresher muscles.

Anyone have any opinions on the subject?

[kevin c]

Two cents worth:

The most important things I get from dryfire are refinement of and awareness of my technique. The awareness is a large part of what gets me the refinement.

I am less aware when I am tired. I am also more sloppy, so refinement becomes more difficult.

If forced to pick, I'd practice when physically tired but mentally alert. I don't think that muscle fatigue/weakness would make for a unprofitable practice session nearly as much as mental fatigue.

Kevin

[Mistral404]

Like most things, the 30 second sound byte answer is not the best. The factors you need to consider: aerobic v. anerobic, which muscle groups.

Your fine motor skills are reduced after a work out. I believe your muscles typically become more engorged with blood etc. as a result of the workout. I would suggest this is not a good time to practice things that require the use of fine motor skills. If your focus is aerobic this may not be a large issue as it would be if you are doing an anerobic training.

Practice perfect technique--Saul's Philosophy.

[wide45]

Try a short dry fire sesion before, and another one after. Come to your own conclusion which is doing you the most good.

Then post back, and tell us. End the guessing.

[EricW]

Never do it when you're fatigued or distressed and stop at the first signs of fatigue. My signal is when I start blowing reloads. I'll stop, let my shoulders relax, then try again. If I still end up being tense, it's time to stop.

For me, knowing when to knock off (or not to) practice has been as important as practicing to begin with.

FWIW...

[srf]

Sometimes I like to dry fire When I am mentally and/or physically tired. This forces me to focus on the fundamentals and recreates the conditions you encounter from time to time during a long match. For me, focus blocks out the mental lethargy. After a few minutes I'm usually doing well, and it's a good confidence boost. I'm not saying I do this all the time, but it's great practice for overcoming fatigue during a match.

[davidball]

I have tried the morning dry fire . . . unsuccessfully. My mind was not awake enough.

I have a similar routine in the morning with regard to working out. I don't have time to do both my work out AND dry fire so I haven't tried dry firing AFTER working out - just instead of working out. I get up at 4am to do the work out as it is - I don't even want to think about getting up at 3am to do both.

I usually dry fire from 7pm - 8pm. This gives me time to get home from work, eat and unwind a little, but is not so late that I am too tired to be effective.

Edited May 15, 2006 by davidball

[Vlad]

I'll try mornings, before workout to start. I get up around 6:30 and I spend about 1 hour waking up before I start working out around 7:30. I guess I need to clear my head faster and start dryfiring around 7:00.

We'll see how it goes. Thanx guys.

[bountyhunter]

I'm starting to dryfire more seriously then in the past, and I'm making an effort to fit it in my day to day schedule.

I have two questions:

1) When do you do your dryfire session, in the morning or at nite (I don't want to hear from you folks who don't have to go to work )?

Anyone have any opinions on the subject?

At night when you are watching TV. FYI, Tom Brokaw is pretty easy to hit but Katie Couric is shifty......

Put a target on the wall and shoot at it.

[Bigbadaboom]

3 Days a week. In the evening (7pm - 8/8:30pm) Sun, Mon, and Tues. I go out and perform live-fire drills (Approx. 100 rounds) on Wed afternoons, after work on my way home.

[mcoliver]

I used to be a dry fire freak. I dry fired mostly at night after work. Sometimes I squeezed it in during early mornings if I wake up early. Sometimes the hours doesn't matter, I just do it. And the sessions can span several hours.

Three things I figured out with regards to how I approach it:

1. I'm tired, I can't seem to do anything right. Accept the fact that I can't do it right because I'm tired yet I go on....slowly. No personal bests or timer for the session.

2. I'm tired, yet I notice a lot of things with what I'm doing. I go on. Try out with the timer and just observe myself (you have to experience it to understand it...I guess.)

3. Everything works. I push everything and try to set personal bests.

It may not work for everybody. But my ultimate goal was always to figure out what my body does and what I can observe when my body/mind is at a particular state.

One thing you really have to remember, esp. when you're tired, is that you need to see and "to call" the shot. Always be honest with your sight pics.

Lastly, be careful about burning out.

[tptplayer]

I believe it needs to fit your personality. I like to get up early so I get up between 4 and 4:30 a.m., drink coffee and read the news for a half-hour, work-out, do a short Bible study and make breakfast for the family. For the last six months I have been dry firing from 6:30 to 7:30 a.m. three days a week then get ready and leave for work at 8:00. A few people including my wife think I am crazy but it suits me.

[Jake Di Vita]

For 8 months my schedule was to wake up at 8, work out. Go to work until midnight and then dry fire from midnight to 4 AM. 7 days a week.

Basically it was the only time I had available and I had to lose some sleep if I ever had a hope of accomplishing the goals that I had set for myself.

[scorch]

i could not do ANYTHING on 4 hours sleep. jake your dedicated Dude!

[Vlad]

For 8 months my schedule was to wake up at 8, work out. Go to work until midnight and then dry fire from midnight to 4 AM. 7 days a week.

... Dude ... I mean ... dude .. did you need your finger joints replaced with some Pfizer titanium ones or something cause ... thats like 1000 hours of dryfire in 8 months .. Dude ..

[XRe]

If you have the luxury, dry fire at all times of the day and evening. In part, you'll be conditioning your body to perform those actions in that timeframe of the day. We tend to get into routines in our lives, and our minds and bodies tend to get used to it - so, most of us aren't used to pulling a trigger or nailing a draw or smoking a reload at 9am - but when do you usually start shooting at a match???

Doing solid dry fire at any time is better than none. Doing no dry fire is better than doing sloppy, crappy dry fire. Stay attuned to your body, as EricW says - when you get fatigued, you're likely to start getting sloppy. You don't want to groove skills like that.

All that said - I'd suggest dry fire first, work out after. Your workout might end up slightly more effective, too, cause you've burned some energy reserves doing the dry fire, and already gotten your muscles moving....

Jake, what the heck were you doing 16 hours a day, 7 days a week??? You've got to live sometime, man!!

[kevin c]

You've got to live sometime, man!!

He was...

[Jake Di Vita]

I would start working around 10 or 11....so it was about 13 hours a day. Most of it was spent helping my Father with his work. After 8 months I literally went to bed Thursday night and didn't wake up until Saturday morning. That was about the time I figured that I had enough.

[kevin c]

OK, you weren't.

[davidball]

For 8 months my schedule was to wake up at 8, work out. Go to work until midnight and then dry fire from midnight to 4 AM. 7 days a week.

Basically it was the only time I had available and I had to lose some sleep if I ever had a hope of accomplishing the goals that I had set for myself.

Jake, I have a question. During this time, how did you keep yourself motivated to continue this insanity? Overwhelming desire to excel? Youthful exuberance?

I ask because keeping motivated for dry firing is sometimes a struggle.

I won't even attempt to understand how you could maintain the four-hour sessions for that long!

[Jake Di Vita]

Dave,

My motivation was that I had told myself I would do it. Becoming a liar in my own eyes was enough to keep me going.

After all, my first commandment states: You don't have to like it - you just have to do it.

[Radical Precision Designs]

Jake-

Myself, and other "old-farts" have always stated that youth is wasted on the young... along with the energy and stamina, etc. Well, at least we have the good looks.

Dry firing is only a part of "aclimating" oneself, in-tune with the equipment. ANY time is a good time. It is my belief that dry firing/live firing, drilling, etc. should be done especially when things are discordant. To presume that only an optimum moment will prepare you for reality would be telling a lie to yourself and a dis-service, especially if you believed it. Very seldom in real life things happen when you are ready for them exclusively. What then, if you are not able to handle the unexpected encounter because of un-familiarity? This is where Jake's "unholly" time to practice came in very usefull.

Indeed it would be important to practice your dry firing before AND after your work-outs. Not necessarily in the same day, though. So long as you get to experience the "familiarity" and best possible "control" during the varying degrees of experienced energy levels or muscle fatigue. If you are able to "call" reliably your shots at dry fire during episodes of physical fatigue, and transfer them to live fire under similar circumstances, you will be much better prepared than most at the real-time matches. Your coordination will be that much sharper and responsive, because you will depend on your senses much more effectively and TIMELY. Many people practice only that which is pleasant, and avoid that which is harder to do, or they consider irrelevant. It would be a lot easier to accomplish a hard shot when you practice it rather than if you don't. Many shooters are terrible shooting weak hand, but they won't practice it ... that is untill the stage/match calls for it... then they belly-ache about it.

Most shooters claim not to have ANY time at all to practice??? Try something that might sound ridiculous or extreme, like having/putting your (unloaded!) gun somewhere in your pocket or belt, body, or whatever as you go along with your off-beat time. Then any time you can just practice your grip, sighting and dry firing, and put it back on you. Now and then, as you watch TV or read, just casually grip your gun again and move it around your hand without looking at it, making yourself sub-consciously familiar with its feel, heft and controls as if it was just another member of your body. So much so, that as time progresses at any given time you can just without giving it too much thought, bring up the gun quickly and call accurately a dry fire shot at any given spot by just instinct and reflex. Sounds "nutty"? Maybe. Especially if your wife is watching you, and is not too fond of firearms. Me? I'm single nowadays, thank goodness.

[No.343]

Vlad, This may be a thread drift, but it might be applicable. I've never dry fired in the morning, but I used to shoot my air rifle in the morning and in the evening. I found that at first I shot better groups in the morning than the evening. I attributed that to mental clarity. That kind of bothered me and I was determined to try and learn to relax and concentrate to improve my performance when my mind was racing 100mph. I finally worked on it enough that I was looking forward to my evening air rifle sessions. I found that I could put a few pellets in the trap and then go to sleep.

[Z-man]

I've noticed lately that my physical fatigue really isn't so great a factor in my dry fire practice as mental fatigue. When my mind isn't on what I'm doing I really struggle, whereas sometimes being physically tired slows me down enough to move smooth (and smooth=fast right?).

[Shooter Grrl]

Vlad - mix up your dryfiring session times Do some in the mornings before your workout, some after the workout and then some in the evenings. I've found by pushing my mind and body to overcome all influences, my match shooting followed along. I'm no longer "scared" of early start times, stages at dusk or being too tired or sick to perform.

My personal experience was that I shot best in the morning, because that is when I dry fired. It's all muscle memory and your brain counts as a muscle! Now I don't let my brain memorize a specific time a day to shoot! Make sense?