The more I shoot, the more I realize what I do not understand about shooting.
For USPSA, which is different than, for example bullseye, athleticism helps. I suspect athleticism is related to grip strength, meaning the more athletic the more likely one is to be stronger. So is it the grip strength or the overall athleticism this is at work?
For some years, I have been convinced support hand strength and technique is more important than your strong hand. Lately, at least with a Glock, I believe my strong hand wrist angle and tension is more important for me than my support hand.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
A propos athleticism and grip: I can't recall where I read it, but I do recall a post where one way to diagnose the overall health of an individual is grip strength or lack thereof.
Also, Frank Proctor does believe Strong hand plays a larger role in grip than support hand.....check out the 3:57 mark.
Yep, 100%.
I am less concerned with building grip strength; I am quite confident most able bodied adults have the required grip strength to adequately mitigate the recoil impulse of most pistols. What I do think they lack, is the ability to maintain grip pressure throughout the entire string of fire.
That’s pretty important, and it requires some training, focus, tinkering and self analysis. Because everyone grips the gun differently, discussion of amount of grip pressure and crush grip vs push pull...etc, etc... is hard for most to even understand. Students of the pistol tend to benefit better from such discussions, because they have played with their grip, but for most, the discussion is lost on them.
IMO, grip texture matters almost as much as grip pressure, but that is a discussion for a different thread maybe.
"Next time somebody says USPSA or IPSC is all hosing, junk punch them." - Les Pepperoni
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Charlie Perez/Big Panda also came to this conclusion. he had conducted a survey of top shooters and had measured their grip strength.... check out this video too. the 6:46 mark onwards is especially revealing.....
Of interest to note - he was also a student of Ron Avery. All paths seem to lead to Ron Avery....
Last edited by gomerpyle; 11-17-2019 at 03:18 PM.
I once thought that uber strength would be necessary for action pistol sports - how many have heard of Robert V’s or Jerry M’s grip strength?... but then after hearing a podcast with the greatest action pistol shooter in the world (Eric G) where he says he doesn’t really use hand strength but an isometric push pull - you gotta wonder!
Oh and read Dan John’s strength standards- his expected standards and his game changer standards are quite attainable.
Last edited by guymontag; 11-17-2019 at 03:18 PM.
When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk. -Tuco
Today is victory over yourself of yesterday... -Miyamoto Musashi
When exercising with V shaped devices under spring pressure, I inverted the device and then gripped it with 4 fingers. My trigger finger remained independent and did not engage. This tip came from Bill McMillan, a once famous bullseye shooter.
Literal hand strength as a contributor or detractor to shooting performance is not a simple question.
Shooters taught to grip and shoot primarily through the use of their literal hand-strength (e.g. forearm and thumb muscles) will always have a greater delta when performing at-speed between males and females, and the inathletic vs the athletic. Such methodology works well-enough for many, but that doesn't necessarily associate with them being at their best. Many perform incredibly well in-spite of such methodology, and not because of it.
Shooters taught to grip and shoot in a more whole-bodied manner, in which their shooting grip recruits the pectoral and trapezius muscles, and with an athletic stance seamlessly integrated from ground-contact to pressing trigger-finger; will have a much smaller delta and a greater difficulty in identifying the limiting factors at-hand. Details like accommodative (or, focal) ability, cognitive ability to recognize "good enough (sight picture) to press (the trigger)," and self-awareness of transitional periods really come into play then - and they are much harder to diagnose and address at any scale beyond one-on-one.
Transitional periods - such as when shooting on the move and the stance splits between movement necessities (hip orientation) and compromising shooting requirements (shoulder orientation), when accelerating out of the static or decelerating from movement, when shifting targets (laterally and longitudinally - if not vertically as well), or when shifting modalities (e.g. carry this, apply that (e.g. TQ), light to dark or dark to light, confined spaces to open spaces) - all can steal time from a shooter's final endsum of a run. But, outside of such shooting sports, time is not always the most prominent metric in play; though, to emphasize, I don't speak down to the shooting sports in the least when I say this, and the shooting world should be grateful for their existence and influence upon the craft.
Pardon the self-referencing:
Re: grip; https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....l=1#post824362
and; https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....l=1#post817193
Re : stance; https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....l=1#post944399
Last edited by runcible; 11-17-2019 at 07:33 PM.
Jules
Runcible Works
When I get in the shooting zone and am doing my best, I’m not really thinking about grip (or recoil for that matter). My hands and wrists sort of absorb the recoil and the sights come right back down where they started. In my mind, it’s akin to catching a football with some heat behind it: you don’t reach out with rigid hands, but with soft hands.
This is true. Grippers are crush grip, and highly technical, believe it or not. I’d argue that building your open hand grip (like you’d use on a fat bar deadlift) and your pinch grip (like pinching two 35lb Olympic plates together and picking them up) are probably more useful than working on grippers. If you just want an overall strong grip, grippers are not the best approach. Check out gripboard.com or the grip strength subreddit for advice. They won’t tell you to go buy a bunch of grippers if your goal is well-rounded, useful hand strength with carryover to the real world. But grippers are fun.
You may be thinking of multiple studies that showed a correlation between grip strength and life expectancy. Here’s one article. https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile..../idUSKCN1IM1TA
But grip strength is just a stand in for overall strength. I’m sure if they had measured overhead press the stronger people would have longer lifespan. Just working your grip isn’t going to add years to your life.
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We are making some leaps (having a strong grip doesn’t help) just because two presumably relatively weak individuals finished 13th and 14th. If they had stronger grips, isn’t it possible that they would have finished higher?
Strength can only be an enabler. It’s not a disabler. Clearly you dont need get into the world of grip sport and develop a world class grip, but for untrained individuals bumping up your grip strength is low hanging fruit. You can make strides quickly. Plate curls, fatbar deadlifts, plate pinches and an adjustable Ivanko Super Gripper will go a long way.