New Year, New Training Plan (2018 Edition)

In a reprise of this thread:

It's that time of year.

• What does your 2018 training plan look like?
  
• What are your goals?
  
• Have you created S.M.A.R.T. goals for yourself?
  
• What are your opportunities to achieve those goals?
  
• What are your training opportunities?
  
• What are your distractors?
  

What about 2017?

• What goals did you accomplish?
  
• What worked?
  
• What areas of improvement did you identify?
  
• Did you take time to properly celebrate your successes?
  

Attend a Zins Clinic. Work on the Marine Corps training manual.

To make expert.

No.

Shoot at Escondido and South Bay club matches.

Indoor range 10 minutes from my house. Shoot every other day.

This forum.

Complete Marine Corps training manual.

Thanks for the reminder

2017 Review Completed (That was a sobering process - But the physical training and development was a great success for 2017)
2018 Goals Drafted - Review in process with Training Schedule development
2018 Matches - Being Scheduled, subject to Wife's vacation plans - Lodging for Canton and Perry IS reserved.  
2018 Training Schedule - Being modified due to new projects. (I found out consulting is not retirement and similar to being married, my time is not necessarily my own.) 

CR

I thought I would share how I organize my training plan because you guys ripping it apart helps me make it better.
 
But first, I make a distinction between goals and objectives.  Since I came of age in the corporate world, a goal is a high level statement of achievement.  For example, 'This company's goal is to be a leader in the industry'.  An objective is measurable.  For example, 'I want to break 800 with my .22 in 2018' would be an objective and would qualify as SMART since it is specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound.  So given that distinction, I divide my training plan into five categories as follows.
 
 
1. Physical Fitness - This can include weight control, strength training, balance, coordination, grip strength, etc.  If everything is good here, you goal is to maintain your physical condition.
     Goal
     Objective(s)
     Metrics
 
2. Fundamentals - You know what they are
     Goal
     Objectives(s)
     Metrics
 
3. Mental Conditioning - If Bullseye shooting is predominately a mental game, what are you doing to train your mind?
     Goal
     Objective(s)
     Metrics
 
4. Equipment - If you regularly get a lot of alibis in a match, you may want to have something in this section.  But if the majority of your training plan is in this section, you need to rework your plan
     Goal
     Objectives(s)
     Metrics
 
5. Safety - Have any squib loads?  Excessive charges?  Ever had anyone correct you on the proper handling of a gun?
     Goal
     Objectives(s)
     Metrics
 
A couple of suggestions.  First, you don't have to have all five categories and you may have some that I don't.  Second, don't overload your plan.  If you have 2 pages of physical fitness, 10 pages of fundamentals, etc., you will never get it done.   Jim Valvano, the former head basketball coach at NCSU, had his entire career plan on a single 3x5 card.
 
So what is a metric?  Since a characteristic of an objective is that it is measureable, metrics are your measurements.  They can be a hard number.   Such as recording how many times you dry fire a day and for how long.  Or they can be qualitative.  Such as recording your general attitude at the beginning of a match and recording it after the match.  (This attitude metric would be part of Mental Conditioning.)

I'd add that a good goal isn't to reach a particular score/rank - that is the metric.

I'll suggest the Go Mad Framework (NFI) which helps discover where the roadblocks are.  I used this last year on my shooting goals and found the biggest road block was that I didn't believe I could make the goal happen.  https://image.slidesharecdn.com/whoaregomadthinking-12784902439078-phpapp02/95/who-are-go-mad-thinking-4-728.jpg?cb=1278472352

To Joytoshoot's 3 bullets under each goal, it is important to add "How will you celebrate when you reach that metric?"

Aprilian wrote:

To Joytoshoot's 3 bullets under each goal, it is important to add "How will you celebrate when you reach that metric?"

Aprilian, I like your suggestion of celebrating success.

Thomas

p.s. We may be saying the same thing, but one does not reach a metric.  A metric are those measures/observations/etc that you record to let you know you have reached your objective.

I think we are.  I was referencing "Make Master" as not a goal in itself, rather it is the confirmation of reaching a different goal or set of goals.

My training plan for this year is really exciting, because for the first year in almost a decade I have complete stability. No trips, no deployments, nothing to take me from shooting. I got my expert card back in 2015 but every time i have started to make real progress and get close to master, I would be deployed. Shooting an M134/M240/M4 is fun, but not real helpful for trigger control. So this will be the year to get that ground back.

Unfortunately, there is also no one close who shoots bullseye. Which is really sad because back in WA we had an excellent group of gentlemen (and lady) who shot 2x a week nearly year round.

So my training plan is consisting of daily dry fire with a very heavily weighted gun (4lbs) to help build my endurance and solidify my hold. I also got a membership at an indoor range that I will be able to shoot at 3x a week, on 25yd non-turning targets. I am adapting the MC team book as best I can. The toughest part is not having regular competition for 'match pressure' or a coach to analyze what I'm doing.

I also put a red dot on my .22 for the first time a couple weeks ago and have integrated it into my training plan on Jon's advice, the dot really does give a lot more feedback than irons. The short line with a .22 and dot is so shockingly easy to clean, It is a really great confidence booster. I have a lot of eyesight issues (focusing, blurriness and swimmers) with iron sights that have really held me back in the past as well, and they are not much of a factor with the dot.

My training plan also requires that i do not experiment with ammo AT ALL during the training season. I have a short line and long line recipe, I will not mess with them at all until the season is over. And I try to do a minimal amount of reloading during the season as it is a big distraction.


This years goals:
1) P100
2) earn a hard leg at Perry NTI/EIC
3) Break 2550 with irons.

Perry is another thing I am excited about this year. I have been in the past 3 years in a row, and done very poorly (although it was a really good experience). I flew there for a couple days, and it was always in the middle of very stressful times at home so I really was not able to enjoy it.
This year, the whole family is going (My wife and 3 daughters) and we will rent one of the cabins and have a mini-vacation. Should be much more fun and less stressful, no detroit airport or rental car or flying with guns hassle.

So that's my story. I am confident that this will be the year that I am able to break out of the expert class.

Andrew, those three are great ambitions and I hope you reach all of them.  I like how you have identified endurance and hold and also removed the ammo rabbit-hole.  You might want to ask yourself the question, "what other skills (etc.) do I need to develop/practice/perfect in order to reach those milestones?"

For example "breaking 2550 with irons, might also include getting glasses with a particular prescription, doing eye exercises, buying something to black the sights, creating a cheat sheet of sight changes based on sun angle, etc, etc, etc.  Do a brainstorming exercise for each milestone - what are all the things which might help, then narrow down the list to the important ones to tackle first. Based on your lack of local matches, you may want to increase your reading on the mental aspects of the game.


I like that the title of the thread references "training plan" instead of "goals".  The more you can break it down into small concrete steps/tasks, the higher the probability you will achieve 1 2 & 3!

Right now all my goals seem to include the task of improving grip consistency while executing clean .45 trigger pull - so my milestone of getting sharpshooter is a measurement of how well I progress in that skill (and others I am working on).  However, as someone who had not shot until less than 2 years ago, having it broken down into small steps and tasks allows me to celebrate my small successes.  For example last night, I noticed that my 22 and 45 scores had climbed up to match my previous avg 22 only scores - reward was some good Scotch 

Well, my plan is simple. I shoot expert and occasionally master scores with .22 but rarely break 800 with .45. So my plan is to shoot .45 whenever possible (of course, subject to reloading components and equipment availability) and figure out what am I doing wrong and fix it. I know it's not the heavy trigger, I tried putting my Nelson on my wad gun frame and I shot 846 or something like that - not exactly master, but definitely much better than what I can do with .45. So there must be something else.

JD, your probably anticipating. Which means you should practice a lot with a properly setup gun. Also lighten your load. If you’re shooting 200s, load 185s. Drop the powder to where the gun barely functions. At this point if the group opens up a bit don’t worry about it you’re working on a physiological issue. Try 3.4 700X or 3.8 BE with those 185s. Lighten the recoil spring if you have to. Concentrate on sustained fire. Try to keep all bullets in the black at 25 in timed fire. Shoot 1000 rounds in practice at a pace of 50 - 100 rounds a week.

Wobbley wrote:JD, your probably anticipating.  Which means you should practice a lot with a properly setup gun.  Also lighten your load.  If you’re shooting 200s, load 185s.  Drop the powder to where the gun barely functions.  At this point if the group opens up a bit don’t worry about it you’re working on a physiological issue.  Try 3.4 700X or 3.8 BE with those 185s.  Lighten the recoil spring if you have to.  Concentrate on sustained fire.  Try to keep all bullets in the black at 25 in timed fire.  Shoot 1000 rounds in practice at a pace of 50 - 100 rounds a week.  

Yes, I think you are right. Well, my load is already close to the bare minimum, 3.7BE / 200gr bullet (I tried 185gr and didn't really notice any difference). Yes, sustained fire is my Achilles heel, so that's my plan for this year - practice more sustained fire.

JavaDuke,  Someone posted an interesting exercise recently where they start with loading 1 and placing the sustained shot in black,  then go 2 two in the black then 3, etc.  however, if you fail to get all in the black, you drop the rounds back one and need to repeat that level before increasing the count (or something like that).

Practice vs training 

To me, that exercise is more like "practicing" than "training", for sustained fire.  It's like the USMC book that has lots of "things" to be accomplished, but people miss the point that in order to accomplish those things, they have to identify the parts of the shot process that needs work.  

JavaDuke, has identified that sustained fire with the .45 is an area for improvement.  I would suggest that the analysis may need to go a bit deeper.  So, how about shooting a rapid fire string right off the bat at the range.  No "warm up", etc.   Then, take a few miinutes at the end of the five shots, without looking at the target and go through the list.

Is the stance, position and arm the same for each shot? 
Are you standing exactly the same way (posture wise) when you finished?
Is the grip the same for each shot, is it the same place as where you started?
Did you really see just the front sight for each shot?
Did the gun, arm and body react to recoil and return to the same spot?
Did the trigger feel exactly the same for each shot?
Etc. Etc.
There are lot of questions to be reviewed after just those five shots.

But, the answers will tell you where to focus the "training".

Thought for the year.  Shoot smarter, not more, get better. 

CR

I think that was Rob Kovach

I have 2 goals this year, get into the 880's with my 45 and go distinguished with rifle.

2018 Goals:

Keep showing up on the BE line at my local range weekly. -- Not just to shoot, but to see the folks that have become my friends.

Make more effort to travel to shoot BE with others.  -- I need to make more time to attend the well-attended BE shoot about an hour from me in Raleigh, NC and I definitely want to go shoot one of Cecil's 2700s this year up near Mebane, NC.

I am thinking it would be awesome to run an NRA-Sanctioned League Match (Indoor 25-yard) at my local range. -- I have been looking into this the past week and probably at the point I need to call the NRA.

Get my NRA Pistol Instructor cert. -DONE!  Get my NRA CRSO cert. -- RSO is done and I have signed up for CRSO class in March

Remember the lessons of Late Spring 2017, in which I learned the relentess pursuit of a score does you no good if your scores drop due to overtraining, overthinking, and unmanaged expectations.  -- I learn at my pace and no one else's.

Thanks and I hope you make it to the matches around here.

To be clear, I run the Sir Walter Gun Club match, outside Creedmoor NC; 4th Saturday, March through October.  The website should be updated shortly, use the email contact there to reach me to reserve a spot (there are only 20 positions and we generally fill up every month). 

Clark Hardesty (the hardest working match director I know) runs the Durham Pistol and Rilfe Club matches; near Mebane, NC; generally the 3rd Sunday, March through October.  The website for Durham has an on-line sign up process and they have 40 positions, but they do get full for the Regional and State matches. 

Either of us can help you get matches set up if you need help.  (Basically copy someone else's program, modify for your specifics and do the on line application on the NRA website.)  We have copy of John D's scoring programs available too.  Jim up at Richmond really seemed to like using it.  Just reach out and let us know what you need. 

Again, hope you can make it to both locations. 

Cecil

Me too! 

The Raleigh meet I meant was the one at WFETC run by Willie Trowell.  It is a really nice facility there.  I only made it a few times last year.  Willie is so friendly.  I wish he would post up on this forum, but there are a few other from there that post up every once in while.

Sorry for the confusion on DPRC vs. SWGC, I can't hardly keep you guys straight, but will get it right once I have been there!  If you are full up, I will come volunteer to RSO and just help out.

Thanks for the offer of help getting rolling with NRA sanctions.  I am sure you will hear from me in the future on that.