Training Cycles

When I was young and my job involved full-time shooting and training, it was very easy to maintain and grow my pistol skills. Every day I had plenty of time for physical training (PT), defensive tactics (DT), shooting, and many other things. When I acquired a family and switched jobs to be home more, my work-required training went from daily to more of a week-a-month type of training schedule. As I’ve gotten older my training has changed again, based on weather, outside interests, and other shooting interests.

This has led me to adopt more of a professional athlete’s type of training schedule, not in the daily aspect but in the bigger picture of a year or more. During the Action Pistol competition season, which runs from about March to October, I train daily for that competition, as well as other related pistol skills. This takes the form of dry fire almost every day, combined with 1-4 days a week of live fire. I shoot very few other guns during this timeframe. I may try something out for a little bit, but I don’t seriously train with other guns. Not surprisingly, my pistol skills peak during this time.

When the season is over, I switch to shooting more rifle and shotgun-type stuff, as well as other pistols that I simply want to play around with or try out. Weather often makes that an interesting proposition. By the time the competition season comes around again, I find that I have to work a bit to get my pistol skills back up to snuff. Though that can be a little frustrating, I find that it works out well and keeps me motivated throughout the year.

So, what kind of difference in skill are we talking about? During the peak of the competition season, I can count on a sub-1-second draw (.7-.85 at 5-7 yards, depending on the target). My splits on things like A zones at 25 yards are in the .3-.35 range and my reloads are in the 1.5-1.75 sec range. These are warmed-up times, not cold.

When I am in the off-season, my draw drops to around a 1.1, my splits go to a .4-.5 and my reload is around 2 seconds. Even in the off-season, I keep my cold draw at 1.5 or better, whereas during the season, my cold draw might be around 1.1-1.2 seconds.

Does any of this matter for the real-world use of a pistol? No. If you are more concerned with lifetime mastery of the gun, then you may need to adopt a training cycle that allows you to train hard for a while, then de-load for a bit and explore other aspects of the gun. When it comes time to train hard again, you are hungry for improvement and refreshed, ready to work.

This type of training schedule also allows for life to happen. If you know that certain times of the year are busier for you, either professionally or personally, maybe plan on using that time to de-load, rather than getting frustrated at missing training sessions.

Most of us cannot maintain everything all the time. Lifting, eating, shooting, BJJ, etc all need to be worked into already busy lives. Figure out what is most important to you and prioritize it, but also plan for down time where you might be able to make gains in some other area.

Here is a video I did for a friendly competition that I was invited to participate in. Given that I’m just starting to train seriously for the season, I was very happy (and a bit surprised) to be able to make the times and hits. In a couple of months, I would have assumed it to be no problem, but right now it took a little luck to make it work out. Some of that luck took the form of a much lower hand position than I prefer. Sometimes luck is all you need. Most of the time, I prefer skill.