What tips/tricks do you have for making your cold performance closer to your warmed up performance?
What tips/tricks do you have for making your cold performance closer to your warmed up performance?
I don't think I have any good advice for this, except first make sure to quantify how much difference there really is. Despite my first stages feeling slow, I have trouble actually identifying this in the match results (possibly due to overall not-great performance).Originally Posted by JV
I agree on the tracking/quantify tip. I try to start my range sessions with the same drill, I'll also shoot it again mid session.
For many drills, there's a 20% difference, especially if my cold run is clean.
The difference between the two is primarily mental, as the muscles required do not really need a warm up to function very close to 100%. Do you have a pre drill routine? I know that in the real world you don't get a routine, but in an academic sense, building a routine you go through right before you shoot could help get your mind into a warmed up state. Athletes do it, musicians do it, and I'm guessing competition shooters do it. Really its just about getting into the right frame of mind.
Edited to add: definitely easier said than done.
Evil requires the sanction of the victim. - Ayn Rand
Nope. I swap the mags so I'm not shooting my carry ammo, put up a target, and run it.
I'm not looking at this in terms of running a better first stage (ie. not match oriented), if I can make the overall cold performance better, it will may/should translate to a better first stage.
There are two different factors that lead to reduced performance when shooting cold. One can be ameliorated to an extent, the other really cannot.
The first issue is mental. Most people are not as mentally focused for their first cold run. They're not thinking about the little things (drive to the gun! or frontsightfrontsightfrontsight!) because they're still dealing with the big picture. As they get warmed up and the brain starts to move some of those things to the preconscious level it becomes easier to focus the conscious on the mistakes you made in previous runs.
The second issue is physical. The muscles and tendons that are involved in many of these skills, particularly pressing the trigger, do benefit from literally warming up. If you've ever tried to shoot without gloves in very cold weather you understand this. Our fingers don't have the same speed and dexterity when they're cold.
For example, I know that when I reload from concealment, unless I'm thinking about it I tend to take too lazy a movement to the magazine. I don't drive hard for it and don't drive it to the gun as fast as I can. I can solve that on a cold run by thinking about it in advance and telling myself to drive to the mag. But it's an artificial solution because that "cold run" is still expected and planned. That makes the result unreliable and not representative of what I'll actually do cold, unprepared, off the range.
True but the more we drill our body to do those good things when cold, even when planned, the better chance they will happen when really needed. A mental checklist may be a good solution for range time.
Evil requires the sanction of the victim. - Ayn Rand
But that's it exactly: the more we train, the better we get, the better both our warm and cold performance becomes. So keeping with my example, the key step in my reload improvement process right now is making that "drive to the mag" step happen preconsciously. That's going to require practice.
So essentially the answer is.... Just get better?
Evil requires the sanction of the victim. - Ayn Rand
No, I think there definitely are things you can do to help with, for example, your first stage at a match. But that's essentially "warming up" without really shooting. For example, you'll see guys practice their draws and trigger pulls at the safe area. Air gunning, visualization, etc. are also techniques people use. It's just important to remember that none of those things will be available to you when you go from condition yellow to "in the middle of a fight" in the blink of an eye.
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