I have found self administered trigger point therapy to be a great complement to weight training in general and specific exercises for the grip and hands (flexors / extensors).
While I have a couple of (expensive) excellent medical volumes on the subject, a great lay volume is by Clair Davies entitled "The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook".
It's helped me immeasurably in years past while working through some injuries.
Last edited by blues; 05-05-2017 at 02:41 PM.
There's nothing civil about this war.
Many good ideas to help your hands via medical stuff. I do many of them.
Another way is to change your training to help.
1. Treat it like a work out. Dryfire every other day, take day or days off.
2. Mix up your training so that the most grip intensive practice is spaced with less strength intensive stuff. Don't do Draw, holster, draw holster, draw holster. That grip at the end really takes it told. Try a grip mixed with a a reload, mixed with support hand work. Next dryfire do target transition work, then movement. Essentially doing the same amount of work you would probably do over a certain period of time but cutting each days specific work by two-thirds.
I used to use Stop pain almost every live fire. By spacing everything out I no longer use it. I'm not good as new but the pain is almost gone. Well, except when the monsoons hit. Humidity still gets the Stop Pain out.
What you do right before you know you're going to be in a use of force incident, often determines the outcome of that use of force.
This sounds like it's really worth a look. Thank you for this post.Originally Posted by Chuteur
Decades of shooting has given me arthritis in both hands and my right shoulder. I also have arthritis in my right wrist from an old injury. I've tried to work around it by switching largely to 9mm from .45acp. I'm currently saddled with a .40 at work, but hopefully that will be changing to a 9mm soon. I usually limit my range sessions, which are two to three times a week, to no more than two hundred rounds. I shot in a competition yesterday and my total round count for the day was three hundred rounds. Pain killers were required upon returning home. I've also switched up my workout routine in the gym, in an attempt to work around the shoulder issues. Life's all about knowing your limitations and being smart enough to work around them. Farther Time waits for no man and simply sucking it up only gets you so far.
We may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again.......
I'm clearly a big hypochondriac but, vitamin B complex and not caring has worked so far
#NoBrainNoPain
#RESIST
I ache just looking at that...
Do you run a plate on the back of the driver's seat now?
Arthritis in my right thumb, hand, and wrist, and CTS in right wrist, are my reality, at age 55.5. The following are randomly listed, as they come to mind:
1. I stopped shooting .40 Snap & Whip. 9mm is now my friend. (I doubt .40 did much of the actual damage; that would have been the big-bore Magnums I fired in the Eighties.)
2. I got away from high-bore-axis SIG pistols. I returned to Glocks, though in 9mm, rather than .40 or 10mm as in my pre-SIG days.
3. Classic steel; I started using my low-bore-axis 1911 again, a full-sized Les Baer Thunder Ranch Special. I bought another all-steel 1911, a pre-owned Les Baer Premier II, 'smithed by John Harrison, with of his permanently-attacked mag wells adding more hefty steel. Yes, .45 ACP is mild enough, for now, when fired in moderation from all-steel, low-bore-axis 1911 pistols.
4. During the time I still had to carry .40 at work, I did my DA trigger pull training with my S&W Model 17 revolver, shooting .22 LR. This same .22 revolver served well as a training gun when I mostly carried revolvers in the Eighties and Nineties, into this century, and remains relevant today, as deliberate DA shooting never seems to hurt my skills with anything. I foresee the acquisition of a .22 LR conversion unit for the Gen4 G19.
5. I am gradually switching hands. I am a natural left-hander, anyway, who decided to carry "primary" on my right hip, in 1983. I did most of the cumulative damage to my right hand. Most of my future training will be lefty-primary. It remains to be seen whether I will ever stop carrying a handgun on my right side, but it is now normal for me to wear left and right holsters. One factor in my recent switch to Glocks is that the quirky Glock trigger is best-handled by my more-dextrous left index finger, whereas DA and SA are sufficiently simple for my right index finger to handle well. (I will probably retire this year, or early next year, so am going to wait until retirement to experiment with switching primary carry positions.)
6. My favored big-bore revolver cartridge is now .45 Colt. Normal chamber pressure is fine, and no light-alloy frames, thank you. Steel is real.
7. I followed, with interest, on another forum, the threads posted by a member who set aside his larger-bore handguns, and started carrying an FN 5.7 pistol, due to age-related afflictions. This weapon does not point well for me, so I did not follow the same path.
8. My G19 pistols hurt a bit, if fired much, but a Surefire X200 or X300, on the rail, mitigates this.
9. I tried shooting my .40 P229R lefty-only, when it first started hurting to shoot right-handed, in 2011. If using a proper thumbs-forward support-hand technique, with my right hand, however, my right wrist was still being affected by the muzzle flip. I did not want to revert to a less-effective support-hand technique, therefore the switch to a lower-bore-axis system and 9mm at the same time, when my chief authorized 9mm as an alternative duty cartridge in 2015.
Last edited by Rex G; 05-07-2017 at 04:58 PM.
I managed to effectively cure left-wrist CTS by typing with a very correct hand position, stretching/massaging often, and, for a while, wearing a CTS brace on my left wrist while sleeping. This was a number of years ago; the cure worked. My right hand was a bit too far gone for such management to effect a complete cure. I have had to continue wearing a CTS brace on my right wrist while sleeping. In a patrol car, the mobile computer mounted to the right of my steering wheel means that I am doing most of my typing with the right hand, on and off throughout the shift. This is probably why I cannot heal my right wrist. (I would rather not make a worker's-comp issue of it, at least not until I am about ready to retire, anyway; perhaps then.)
Notably, shooting does not seem to cause CTS, but recoil can cause pain to a CTS-afflicted wrist.
Last edited by Rex G; 05-07-2017 at 04:58 PM.
Yes. I have a trigger finger that has been broken twice, once at the knuckle. Pretty decent arthritis and a long DA practice session can take a couple of days to get over. Eventually, I will likely end up back with Glocks just because of the issues related to maintaining DA training. At 61, its not getting better. Stretching and excise help, but limiting how much time I crank on a DA trigger really helps.
maybe less rounds per section, spread over more range visits.
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