It occurred to me that Sir Issac Newton may have been the biggest gun nut ever, as his 3 laws of motion define nearly everything in the shooting sports…
First law: Every object continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless compelled to change that state by external forces acted upon it.
Second law: The accelerationa of a body is parallel and directly proportional to the net force F acting on the body, is in the direction of the net force, and is inversely proportional to the mass m of the body, i.e., F = ma.
Third law: When two bodies interact by exerting force on each other, these action and reaction forces are equal in magnitude, but opposite in direction.
The first law defines the path of the bullet and the external factors are gravity, wind resistance, progression and even the additional drop due to the curvature of the earth.
The third law describes recoil and it is why big heavy guns recoil less than little ones and light loads recoil less than heavy ones (powder charge).
The second law describes the muzzle velocity of the bullet and that you can either increase its acceleration in the barrel by increasing the force that propels it by changing something about the powder or you can shoot a lighter bullet. This principle is also used by shotgun shooters with a long barrel to help get a smooth swing and avoid stopping and starting when following a bird. But to me it is important was you are moving in an out of positions.
Acceleration is the change in velocity and the force required to cause it is calculated by Force = Mass * Acceleration. So if you want to be able to accelerate quickly between positions and then come to a stop once you get there, just like the bullet in the barrel, you can reduce the mass of what you are trying to move (you) or increase the force you are able to exert.
After the Carolina Cup, I start to refocus on the fitness aspects shooting prior to the NC State Match after seeing the speed at which the top shooters moved. Since that match I have lost 12lbs (6% of my body weight) and plan to drop as much as 8-9 more pounds. Initially this was done through traditional diet and cardiovascular exercise, however after a bit of thought I decided to focus more on the power aspects of my training and have stopped running distance, in favor of sprints, and stopped doing an endurance exercises in favor of ~30 sec sets, in circuits, but I might even be changing that up more now…
Jess Banda is a frequent commenter on the blog and was feature in a post about 2 weeks ago on improving your grip strength. Following that post, in passing, he asked me if there was anything else I thought he should cover and I said…
Definitely, two I would love to see are increasing hand speed for weapon manipulations and leg power/quickness between shooting locations
Coincidentally, he had been considering both of them and posted the 1st one on developing the power to be able to move between positions today. His full post and a sample workout schedule is available on his site at http://bandatacfit.wordpress.com, or you can link directly to his post here.
In the post he includes a YouTube video that describes the different types of muscle fibers and how training them wrong can actually hurt your speed. I really wanted to post it here but thought it would be nicer to drive you to his site. Go check it out.
Ron is the Founder and President of When the Balloon Goes Up! He competes regularly in IDPA as an ESP/Expert, his focus is on concealed carry, home defense and analyzing equipment to find “Gear that Just Works!”
