Running

[P30]

My personal circumstances (63, semi-fit, 5'6", 185#, old soccer injuries)

What kind of injuries? Knee or what? Maybe I can point you to some very good stretching exercises that help a lot (in German). Had a quite heavy knee injury myself 5 years ago, learned how to make the knee work better than before. The team doc of Schalke 04, one of Germany's most famous soccer teams, helped me. Schalke finished #2 in the German soccer championship that season. (I'm 51 years old now.)

- What is the best way to arrive at a shooting position? I vaguely recall from my Feb Tim Herron class he emphasized bending your knees and "putting on the ABS" by going low as you arrived at a new position, gun up, sights tracking, but I may misremember that.

That's a good point: Braking/arriving technique. My training exercise above is just brute force training for the muscles (plus the necessary muzzle discipline). But good technique is also very important, e.g. how to transition from running to aiming.

[RJ]

What kind of injury? Knee or what? Maybe I can point you to some very good stretching exercises that help a lot (in German). Had a quite heavy knee injury myself 5 years ago, learned how to make the knee work better than before. The team doc of Schalke 04, one of Germany's most famous soccer teams, helped me. (I'm 51 years old now.)

Ankles. As in twisting them, frequently. Back in the day, on my local club team, I'd just double wrap with a couple layers and get on with it. But fortunately my days of wearing my Adidas "Beckenbauer" 's are behind me.

Although, on topic: I may look into a simple wrap before I start up the season this fall when we get back to FL. I'd never actually thought of doing that, it might add a bit of stability instead of looking into mid-rise cleats, or trail shoes (what I have now are basically running shoes with thick, lugged soles.)

[P30]

Ankles. As in twisting them, frequently.

Ankles are not the joints of my "expertise" (knees, hip joints and back are). But I suppose exercises on a balance board (like this) will also help the ankles. I used it sometimes for my knees. I would balance with only one foot on it and move the other leg to front, back and side or write numbers in the air with the other foot. I put a rubber yoga mat under the balance board so that it can not slip should I loose balance. Balancing on one foot only directly on the ground and writing numbers with the other foot in the air will also improve the muscles and their control a bit, but the balance board intensifies it.

This is a German YouTube channel with stretching exercises that help me a lot:
Liebscher & Bracht (note how many clicks the videos have although Germany has not as many inhabitants as the US).

[Clusterfrack]

Here's a great video Ben Stoeger posted on practical shooting strategy. What I like is that it compares what he does to Krystal Dunn's approach while shooting the same stages. Different skill levels, and different levels of athletic ability, power etc. It also shows some nice running-with-a-gun. Here's a FaceBook link to a video of USPSA GM Matt Hopkins doing some running. Again different body type, but very fast and effective.

[YVK]

"When you do reload" and "running" are different subjects for me. I want to come into the position with a gun up as often as I can.. Unless 180 dictates late reload, I want to reload early.

Running is the most raw athletic component in USPSA and if you're past 40, and I am being generous here, you're unlikely to build more explosiveness and foot speed. Doesn't mean 50+ year old dudes can't move, you just need to look at @cheby, but foot speed is what they got from their teens. You could do ladder drills and hit a leg press but it ain't gonna give a high yield.

My personal plan on this, and I hate how I move on stages, is first to keep a general level of athleticism as well as I can. Second, I want to keep running with a gun in practice because a lot of slowing down comes from fear of carrying a gun / breaking 180 etc. You have to be confident that when you pump your arms, you're not gonna get DQ'd. These two are the only things that can affect a raw foot speed at my age. Lastly, actually firstly for me, cutting down on early shuffling / unnecessary footwork on entry is huge. This is from yesterday match. I programmed stepping into the box with a right foot and fire immediately but it took a lot of extraneous steps and premature slowdown to do it.

[Clusterfrack]

I like p30's suggestion to get used to running hard with something in hand. Bluegun or unloaded drills are another great way to explore how to run while navigating the safe angle.

I've done range sessions where I'll run between positions without a gun to set a par time, and try to match it with a gun while not "DQing".

Today’s match had great stages, with lots of options. Two stages had aggressive retreats, one with a draw right on the 180.

[Kirk]

I'm not an expert whatsoever on USPSA, as my shooting sport is static. With that said, are we possibly complicating this too much, specifically with regards to running between arrays in a stage? Since this is a sport, I see a lot of guys, even top-level shooters, sort of ignore training basic athleticism. Stronger = more power = more explosiveness = faster = better stage times I'd surmise. Running sprints = better at running = better stage times. I realize that this is unlikely to be geared towards this audience at P-F, because I believe most of us engage in some basic to advanced physical training, but I'd guess that to get better at running a stage, one would run/lift more. I'm not saying you have to be running 5 minute miles in 5Ks, but just some basic squatting/deadlifting and 100-400m sprints would make a lot of guys a lot faster. I imagine you could train sprinting with a SIRT or blue gun to be more sport-specific.

As far as footwork and such, I have no idea and couldn't comment. Certainly couldn't comment on running in a high-threat environment, absolutely no experience there. My post is purely geared at the "running between target arrays" part of USPSA. Even when I competed and comparatively sucked at shooting, I was able to win a couple of field courses because of athleticism back in the day. Of course, our match director liked to set up some pretty wild arrays (one had us run roughly 30y-40y on a sprint to an array).

[Clusterfrack]

reposting this here

A timely blog post by Matt Little of Graybeard Actual on moving with a firearm.

For those not familiar with Matt, he is a former Green Beret, Chicago PD swat officer and a Master class USPSA shooter.


https://greybeardactual.com/blog/mov...pgwvUzx4evcqNo

[JCN]

Great post and spot on.

Purposeful and vision directed.

Shooting while unstable.

I’m at the stand and shoot level currently where more stand and shoot practice isn’t going to help my match performance. I’m working half stages in practice to see what’s reproducible and to experiment with what I need stability and vision wise to get reproducibility.

I cannot wait until the gravel gets put down on my range so I can train 3 berm movement.

[BWT]

I'm not an expert whatsoever on USPSA, as my shooting sport is static. With that said, are we possibly complicating this too much, specifically with regards to running between arrays in a stage? Since this is a sport, I see a lot of guys, even top-level shooters, sort of ignore training basic athleticism. Stronger = more power = more explosiveness = faster = better stage times I'd surmise. Running sprints = better at running = better stage times. I realize that this is unlikely to be geared towards this audience at P-F, because I believe most of us engage in some basic to advanced physical training, but I'd guess that to get better at running a stage, one would run/lift more. I'm not saying you have to be running 5 minute miles in 5Ks, but just some basic squatting/deadlifting and 100-400m sprints would make a lot of guys a lot faster. I imagine you could train sprinting with a SIRT or blue gun to be more sport-specific.

As far as footwork and such, I have no idea and couldn't comment. Certainly couldn't comment on running in a high-threat environment, absolutely no experience there. My post is purely geared at the "running between target arrays" part of USPSA. Even when I competed and comparatively sucked at shooting, I was able to win a couple of field courses because of athleticism back in the day. Of course, our match director liked to set up some pretty wild arrays (one had us run roughly 30y-40y on a sprint to an array).

That and fitness. I read an article or heard an SAS operator talking about keeping your heart rate below 140 BPM for shooting, etc.

Being able to have general fitness / mobility and keep a heart rate down while also doing the physically activity and keep vision while doing so has an advantage as well.

I remember doing shooting matches (2-gun) and saw that honestly some of the guys would just be a lot better off if they really ran between certain parts. Or stayed in shape to do so.