Gun equivalent to Starting Strength - organized beginner program

[SLG]

What is a Ford.304?

Contrary to the good advice the others have given, I have the plan you are looking for, as long as what you are looking for is what I was looking for. Mid South put out a video many years ago called Combat Pistol. The techniques demonstrated by John Shaw are a bit dated, but the 10 drills he outlines, in order, are priceless. They took me from new shooter to IDPA master class very quickly and easily. Many of them can be done dry and live, and really, the 10 drills boil down to fewer than that. 15 minutes of daily dryfire combined with whatever live practice you can do will work wonders.

There are, or course, no free lunches, and you have to be able to diagnose yourself. There are other requirements to success if you follow this plan, but you'll have to figure those out as you go along. Hint: the vast majority of "gun people" can't slow down long enough to learn anything.

[nycnoob]

Mid South put out a video many years ago called Combat Pistol. The techniques demonstrated by John Shaw are a bit dated, but the 10 drills he outlines, in order, are priceless.

This link appears to be what SLG is talking about:

Combat Pistol Special Edition DVD Featuring John Shaw See the ten pistol drills that create speed and accuracy $20.00 + free shipping anywhere in USA.


Midway and amazon have it for about $10 more.

[the_swede]

Todd, I compiled the post in the Reference section (from your excellent articles) that most closely matches what I'm talking about ;-)

I guess my point is, the best part about those strength programs is that they give you a simple plan and a schedule. They say "do this and stick to it." The online resources I've found (including your site, and other excellent beginner resources like Cornered Cat) give a novice all the tools they need to develop a plan. But they don't hand the novice a "Plan." For me, at least, removing the temptation of trying to make decisions on this was really helpful when it came to strength training. Novices are the least qualified people to make any decisions.

This isn't just my asking for resources -- although I do intend to use these resources. I'm curious what people think about that style of guidance when it comes to pistol training.

I'm not qualified to be a firearms trainer, so I don't know why things are done how they are. But my experience in fitness has been much... clearer, I guess, than pistol. For pistol, I took a couple classes, found all the great resources online... but felt kind of on my own to figure out how to practice. I do structured drills, but my overall progress never felt quite as... clear as my fitness plan, if that makes sense. I feel like it's a gap in at least the online resources.

I've done some of Steve Anderson's dry fire book, and that is more structured -- but it also feels aimed at someone trying to pull the last tenth out of their competition run.

Of course, I am also talking about it because I've been a member here for 4 years now and I'm heavily afflicted by it. Reading about training on my breaks at work is always easier than making time to go practice.

And what is it you want to train if not increasing speed and improving accuracy? What kind of drills or exercises do you think you wanna be doing? USPSA shooters tend to be the most technicaly competent shooter's you'll meet. Steve Anderson's and Ben Stoeger's book cover all this and also gives you simple plans to follow in dry fire. If you're not into competition just adjust the times a little if you're working from concealment or some level 3 holster. At the end of the day commitment is way more important than form so if you're not making time for practice how much do you really want to get better?

[ford.304]

SLG - I was the 304th Ford to attend my alma mater, and it's easier than thinking of a new nickname I'll check out that DVD.

the_swede and ToddG -- I'm sorry if I came across as though I was trying to argue against the advice being given. I do greatly appreciate it, and I'm ordering the books listed, going to run the drills listed.

Steve Anderson's book is great. I guess my point was just that it's a little overwhelming for a beginner. Ben Stoeger's book sounds as though it is pretty much exactly what I was thinking of. As I meant to say, this wasn't supposed to be just a "give me resources" sort of post, it was also just me musing about the problem of how to learn as a beginner.


Maybe I'm just backwards in how I think about training... but I get really caught in trying to optimize things. Even if I make my own plan, I need to force myself to spend more time *practicing* and less time *diagnosing*, if that makes any sense. I'm not looking for a magic bullet... just something that will make me cover my bases.

What I'm hearing you say, Todd, is that diagnosis is an integral part of learning to shoot a pistol -- and so a one-size-fits-most approach to a training program is counterproductive?

Anyway, time to make a few orders and start a training journal. Thanks, all.

[ToddG]

What I'm hearing you say, Todd, is that diagnosis is an integral part of learning to shoot a pistol -- and so a one-size-fits-most approach to a training program is counterproductive?

More of a "one size fits random individual" ... Plenty of police academies have generalized pistol training, after all.

Someone could say "deadlift 350# five sets of five reps each." Maybe that's easy for you. Maybe that's impossible for you. Maybe you don't know how to do a deadlift. Now, there are probably plenty of people here at PF who could tell you how to get from wherever you are today to that goal, but they'd need to know where you are today so they had a starting point. That was the reason for the suggestion of doing some basic evaluations and starting a journal. From there, folks will have a much better handle on what you might be best focused on, etc.

[MDS]

More of a "one size fits random individual" ... Plenty of police academies have generalized pistol training, after all.

Someone could say "deadlift 350# five sets of five reps each." Maybe that's easy for you. Maybe that's impossible for you. Maybe you don't know how to do a deadlift. Now, there are probably plenty of people here at PF who could tell you how to get from wherever you are today to that goal, but they'd need to know where you are today so they had a starting point. That was the reason for the suggestion of doing some basic evaluations and starting a journal. From there, folks will have a much better handle on what you might be best focused on, etc.

Not to speak for Ford, but in my mind he's asking for something like "follow such and such procedure to find your one rep max on dead lift, then rest a day, then do 3 sets of 5 at 70% of that one rep max, then....."

[ford.304]

That's exactly what I'm saying, MDS.

The idea behind the strength programs I was using as an analogy is to:

1) Have a set of simple movements that hit the core muscle groups. They aren't perfect for any *one* muscle, but between them they cover the fundamentals. (ie, squat, press, bench, deadlift)

2) Have simple method to find an appropriate difficulty level, then progressively increase the difficulty of these movements. (Start with the empty bar, add 5 lbs each session)

3) Have a set schedule of how often these movements are to be performed. (do 5 sets of 5 reps three times a week. Alternate bench days and press days).

An analogous pistol program (that I just made up) might be something like:

1) 3x5 walkback, Bill Drill, 1 Reload 2

2) Find the speed/distance you can do them clean, then add .5 seconds to your part time. Every range session, decrease the par time by .1.

3) Do each drill 5 times every range session for 8 sessions. Then switch to a new set of drills (something like 25 yard Bullseye, El Presidente, Fast) and start over.

Does that make the question make more sense?

The gym equivalent to what you said is more "post a form video to the forum, and I'll tell you that your chest is your weakness, so you should go do chest flyes to fix it." Which is true, and is how you *have* to train past a certain level. But as a beginner, well... *everything* is your weakness.

[the_swede]

Just as with strength training after you've made those beginner gains by training now and then you gotta start hitting the gym more often. Gun wise, to me at least, this means a bunch of dry fire. Get some scaled targets and set up in your house and start dry firing for 15 - 30 minutes monday - friday.

I'm actually a lot like you. Structuring my training is the hardest part regardless if it's lifting heavy objects from the floor or becoming a better shot. Stoegers book help me a lot. "Ok it's monday today so I do these 5 dry fire exercises" Simple! And if you're not into the whole competition thing then just don't do the USPSA stuff like table starts or starting with the gun unloaded and holstered. But at least the book gives you structure and an easy to follow training plan that will do you good until you are proficient and knowledgable enough to do your own training plan.

Where I live it's dark and cold for about 5 months every year which makes pistol practice unpleasant. But doing only dry fire approx 4-5 days weekly since October until now I noticed a solid improvement in my performance right on the first range session a couple of weeks ago.

[ubervic]

[QUOTE=Llando88;305020]Good thread topic. I'll take a whack at this, as I'm a complete novice.

I think it starts with what you want to achieve. If you are happy just fooling around with guns with your friends, and goin' shootin', then you don't really need any kind of "program" to "get better", since if you go to the range and blast away, you've done what you wanted to do that day.

My goals have evolved a bit, in particular since I started participating in this forum.

In 2013, I bought my first ever handgun, an M&P FS9. I started shooting at the range first so, my attention was drawn to why all my shots went low and right, consistently.

I had read enough online to suspect, well, you know, it's not the gun. So I started investigating, and reading, and so forth. I came across this book, "The Perfect Pistol Shot", by Albert League:

http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Pistol.../dp/1610045718

GREAT THREAD.

I bought this book on a whim and found it highly readable and relevant. The portions concerning grip were, to me, most useful and enlightening. THANKS.