Home Trainer

Valter

Guy's

I need some help getting a home trainer system, on a recession budget. Primarily for 10m Air Rifle, I can't get to the range as often as I'd like, work, work, fecking kids, some of us are busy, LOVL! Anyway, does anybody have, for gifting or sale, maybe hiding in the back of the safe, that were bought with similar intentions to my own and you just couldn't be arsed to set up the PC, or know where I may be able to find the bits that make up the target and the bit that goes on the end of the rifle, Sparks, does the software need a dongle?, I'll buy that too!

I have gone through the usual, looking on the web, downloaded the trial software, and so on. If I can get away without having to buy new it would be great, its just that I want to keep as much of the few bob as I can towards a new rifle, Walther LG300 XT Carbontec, but I have to earn it first. Any help would be gratefully accepted. If I'm off topic, sorry, point in the right direction and I'll be on my merry way.

Sparks

To be honest Valter, unless you're spending three days a week training down the range at the moment and shooting above 560 in men's air rifle, there's no real point to buying one of these. At all. You'd only be fooling yourself.

What you could do, and what I do myself, is to get a reduced size target and pin it to the wall in a quiet room somewhere and stand there and point the rifle at it.

Literally. That's it. That's all. Do 10 minutes a day on that and you're going to watch your score climb quite dramatically. When I was last training hard, this was what I did for my lunchbreak at work in an unused office. Aim and hold for a minute, take a 30 second break, repeat. Watch for your balance, go through your shot routine, watch your zero position, monitor your inner position, and if none of those terms sound familiar, buy 'Ways of the Rifle' first

About the only piece of special equipment I can think of that I'd recommend until you're coming up on an MQS score are these:


Buy two, one for each foot, (you can get them from physioneeds.ie in Ireland, they're in Irishtown in Dublin) and stand on them (they're strong enough for this). Then aim and hold for a minute, rest for a minute and repeat. Do that every day for ten minutes and your scores and technique are going to skyrocket.

Live firing is consistently overrated for training purposes (even when it's useful). Work on the basics first, and for air rifle that means working on your hold before you work on recoil control.

Valter

Hi Sparks, thanks for the prompt reply. My biggest problem is that I can't get to the range 3 days a week, my plan was to get there at least 3 days a week and shoot a full match at the weekend, but due to the way work is running at the moment I can't maintain those plans. I'm at my home office more often than at HQ, so I do have the time and space and have been using it to work on balance, dry fire, mounting, zero and a whole gammit of exercises.

I'd like to put all of that work to practical use and shoot! I would also like to be able to analyse my performance. I'm knocking on the door of MQS in training, I reckon I can bring it to 580 in the next 6 months, with regular live fire training and 5 or 6 matches. I know what elements I need to work on to achieve this, full live match practice is one of the tools I need in order to work on those elements, so if anyone has anything they can offer, let me know!

I read somewhere, interviews with Matt Emmons and Henri Häkkinen, Emmons will shoot 2 matches a day while training and Häkkinen will shoot a fews shots? Open to correction!

Valter

Bump - surely

Sparks

Valter wrote: »

I'm at my home office more often than at HQ, so I do have the time and space and have been using it to work on balance, dry fire, mounting, zero and a whole gammit of exercises.

Well, that'll do the trick given enough time (hell, folks have won olympic medals with that serving as the majority of their training).

I'd like to put all of that work to practical use and shoot! I would also like to be able to analyse my performance. I'm knocking on the door of MQS in training, I reckon I can bring it to 580 in the next 6 months, with regular live fire training and 5 or 6 matches.

I think I'd still hold off on the rika myself, and instead try for coaching time with Matt or Geoff, or even to go over to Kuortane for the training camp this November if it's being run, or something of that nature.

If you're set on getting one though, I'd say go the whole hog and get a noptel. More expensive, yes, but you get what you pay for and in these fun economic times, second hand deals should be good. And if you're buying one of these things, you're saying that this is important to you - so spend the money. Either it's worth not eating out for a month of sundays, or you don't really need it (if you know what I mean).

I read somewhere, interviews with Matt Emmons and Henri Häkkinen, Emmons will shoot 2 matches a day while training and Häkkinen will shoot a fews shots? Open to correction!

I know a lot of the USAMU teams trained with several matches a day like that, but I'm not sure it's the best way to train. It's like a marathon runner running a full marathon every day to train for a race - that's just not how they do it. At the same time, only a few shots a day seems too far in the opposite direction. I know Josef Gonci started off shooting thousands of rounds a day when he was younger, but now he'll only hit hundreds of rounds a day when he's building up for something big like the Olympics or the World Championships, normally he'll go through 50-100 rounds or so a day. But Juha Hirva will shoot more than that, so it's very individual and what works for one won't work for another. You have to analyse what they're doing and extract what is useful to you and run with that, not just mirror them.

Valter

Good man Sparks, there is a recession on, so Kuortane is out of the question, if I could get to the range, believe me I would make use of Geoff's phenomenal coaching skills, Matt would hang me out to dry, I think I need to be hitting 590 before he will even look at me. I'll do the research on noptel and see how things go, thanks again.

Ive just had a look at the noptel, at £1,725.00 sterling, thats a whole year of Sundays, surely someone has one they want to get rid of?

Sparks

Valter wrote: »

there is a recession on, so Kuortane is out of the question

I know the €1500 or so it costs is pricy, but if you're looking to go international, well, that's as much as you'd pay to go shoot in one competition. Whether or not it's worth paying that much for something that will help get you to that level, well, that's kindof something you have to answer for yourself really, but I can tell you that to my mind it was worth every cent I paid for it, purely for the change in mindset alone.

if I could get to the range, believe me I would make use of Geoff's phenomenal coaching skills

Well, if you can't get to WTSC during the week, can you get there on the weekends? Surely you can manage one day a month? See, here's the thing - if you can't get to a range even one day a week, the odds are very good that a home trainer wouldn't be as useful to you as you think.

Matt would hang me out to dry, I think I need to be hitting 590 before he will even look at me.

Well, Matt's still on a bit of a holiday at the moment - ten years of pushing will tire you out. But he'll be back and if someone is hitting on 590 before then and pushing as hard as you have to do to manage that, I'm pretty sure he'd come back to work with them.

Ive just had a look at the noptel, at £1,725.00 sterling, thats a whole year of Sundays, surely someone has one they want to get rid of?

I think there's about four of them in the entire country at the moment. One of them might be available - maybe. I'm not sure. Call Geoff and ask about Don's one. I'm not sure if it's in use or not.

As to the others, there's an earlier thread on this here. The new SCATT, the USB model, goes for around €950 new (€1100 with the trigger pressure sensor, which you'd probably want); not sure what the second-hand prices are.

Also, I'll repeat myself from that older thread:

Sparks wrote:

If you can afford it, Noptel is the rolls royce of trainers. Fast to set up, lots of optional extras (everything from heartbeat to foot pressure to trigger pressure). But, twice the cost too. SCATT is pretty decent, but like Rika, the setup can be a bit fiddly, and with Rika we've found that florescent lights can cause havoc with the system at times. Personally, if I had the money, I'd buy noptel. And if I didn't have the money (which I don't right now), I'd save up for the noptel Or invest in more coaching time...

End of the day, it's another tool in the toolbox, not a silver bullet. Unless you have a coach to help, you won't get the full benefit from it. And there are a host of other, cheaper things you can do first. For example, get yourself a digital camcorder thingy for a tenth the cost of a noptel, sit it on a tripod facing you as you shoot, and tape yourself shooting a full match or a hundred shots or more. Call the shot verbally before you bring back each card, then bring back the card and read off the score for the camera.

Now the fun bit. Sit down the next day, watch each shot, take notes. Look for the bits where stuff goes wrong and what causes it. Did your elbow go in the same place each time? If it didn't, what happened? And so on and so forth.

See, that's the thing about this stuff - it takes twice as much time to do the analysis as it does to do the actual shooting in the first place.

(And those digital camcorders? €150 for a HD model (which you want) from ebay). But it's that 'fun bit' that you have to do. Everyone thinks training is the thing, but unless you're analysing what's happening in training and feeding that back into the next training session (and that's something a coach is invaluable for), well, you're just practicing doing it wrong!

IRLConor

On the camcorder thing, if you want to do it on the cheap you might be able to beg/borrow/steal a laptop and a webcam.

My laptop has an integral webcam and by propping it up beside the firing point I was able to video myself. In a few minutes of shooting I was able to rule out a problem I thought I was having. Sometimes even finding out what the problem isn't can be as useful as finding an improvement in your technique.

Valter

Gents, many thanks for the suggestions. The idea of videoing while shooting is something I planned to use in conjunction with the home trainer. The home trainer will tell me that a shot has gone high, to the left and so on, what it won't tell me is that I placed my head slighly differently for this or that shot, my left hand was a little further down the pistol grip or whatever.

Most of your suggestions point to range work, I can't get to the range. Effectively what I want to do is bring the range home, all the coaching in the world is pointless unless I can practice what I've been coached, also I have too much respect for Geoff to waste his time by asking him for coaching and not being able to practice, I've let him down enough as it is!

I had a look at the Scatt pricing, it is a lot closer to my pocket capabilities than the Noptel, but still a bit rich to buy new. I already have all of the other necessary kit, laptop, printer, video camera and room to set it all up.

Quote - Sparks

Now the fun bit. Sit down the next day, watch each shot, take notes. Look for the bits where stuff goes wrong and what causes it. Did your elbow go in the same place each time? If it didn't, what happened? And so on and so forth.

See, that's the thing about this stuff - it takes twice as much time to do the analysis as it does to do the actual shooting in the first place.



I don't have a problem doing all of the analysis, it can be done at home, there is the danger that you can over analyse which can have the opposite effect, frustration, I am fully aware of that.

You are 100% correct when you say that it is not the silver bullet, far from it, and it will never replace good coaching, what it will do is give me something to go back to the coach with. Again, thanks for the invaluable advise.

MikeD

Dry firing can help quite a bit at home though, even without the trainer. Ideally, you would be consistent every single shot and should be able to ''feel'' from the rifle and follow through what's happened. If you're at the international stage, or verging on it, then there shouldn't be many surprises of ''I thought that was a 10'' and rolling back an 8...

The video camera should work. Each time mark down what the follow through was like and see if there is any correlation on the video. An awful lot cheaper than a grand on an IR laser and receiver (oversimplified, I know ).

Valter

Cheers Mike, I do quite a bit of dry fire and various other exercises. I'm very much lacking in range time. I think the video is an excelent idea, I'm setting it up tomorrow, have all the bits, the next stage will be to get the video and the shot on the same monitor for review purposes.

Sparks

About the video? Make sure you take it to any match you go to and put it in front of you (on the table, or if the range officers are nice people, a few feet down range on a low and stable* tripod, zoomed in on your upper torso. Tape the entire match and you'll see what happens when you're under pressure.



*stable because I've already lost one rather expensive video camera in UCD from a tripod that wasn't stable enough

Valter

Sparks wrote: »

About the video? Make sure you take it to any match you go to and put it in front of you (on the table, or if the range officers are nice people, a few feet down range)

Would you get away with that?

Sparks

It's not about getting away with it Valter - if it's on the table, that's well within ISSF rules. If you want it in front of the firing point (and that's usually a better location), ask the RO if you can put it there during the changeover. Maybe they say yes, maybe they say no (which is why I said "if the range officers are nice people"). Don't try to sneak in front of the firing line!

Valter

Could you imagine the amount of whinging, rightfully too, that would go on, I doubt that you would get a sufficient angle to see a full head position when it is on the bench. I think it is best used on the club range on a tripod and at home while dry firing, I like the idea of being able to see the shot trace on the laptop and the video alongside, a lot of 'why's' could be answered.

Sparks

I've seen ROs be a bit persnickity allright Valter, but I don't think I've ever seen one actually whinge before
And you might not get head position from the bench, but you'd get elbow position, supporting hand position and trigger hand tension at least. And even forward of the line you wouldn't get head position - best shot at that is if you get a friend/spotter/coach to train the camera on your head from behind and to the right (or left if you shoot lefthanded), using a zoom lens and a tripod.

Valter

You won't see him whinge, you'll hear him

Sparks

Well, it's breaking no rules, and if people are going forward to setup for the next detail anyway...

Valter

Still lookin'

Thirdfox

Sparks wrote: »

To be honest Valter, unless you're spending three days a week training down the range at the moment and shooting above 560 in men's air rifle, there's no real point to buying one of these. At all. You'd only be fooling yourself.

What you could do, and what I do myself, is to get a reduced size target and pin it to the wall in a quiet room somewhere and stand there and point the rifle at it.

Literally. That's it. That's all. Do 10 minutes a day on that and you're going to watch your score climb quite dramatically. When I was last training hard, this was what I did for my lunchbreak at work in an unused office. Aim and hold for a minute, take a 30 second break, repeat. Watch for your balance, go through your shot routine, watch your zero position, monitor your inner position, and if none of those terms sound familiar, buy 'Ways of the Rifle' first

About the only piece of special equipment I can think of that I'd recommend until you're coming up on an MQS score are these:


Buy two, one for each foot, (you can get them from physioneeds.ie in Ireland, they're in Irishtown in Dublin) and stand on them (they're strong enough for this). Then aim and hold for a minute, rest for a minute and repeat. Do that every day for ten minutes and your scores and technique are going to skyrocket.

Live firing is consistently overrated for training purposes (even when it's useful). Work on the basics first, and for air rifle that means working on your hold before you work on recoil control.

Apologies for bringing up a very old thread but does this really work? Or, would there be much difference between using the cushion and just practising in the full kit?

Wouldn't the instability caused by the cushion just encourage your body's muscles to react and counterbalance...whereas we're trying to minimise muscle exertion? Or is the point that you will find a position that you can maintain balance on an unstable surface without using muscle exertion?

Hope Valter got sorted out with his home training

Sparks

Thirdfox wrote: »

Apologies for bringing up a very old thread but does this really work?

In words, yes

Or, would there be much difference between using the cushion and just practising in the full kit?

There's some, but the idea is that when shooting off the cushions, your stability is being really tested, and you become much more aware of your balance.

Or is the point that you will find a position that you can maintain balance on an unstable surface without using muscle exertion?

Exactly, and to also learn to watch your balance and learn how to smoothly correct problems with your balance.
It *is* possible to do this and hit tens, I've managed to do it on the range a few times. But the score's not really the point, it's the balance is the thing with this exercise.

You can't do just this exercise though, you also have to do normal dry-firing, because that helps with other aspects of your shooting (eg. your shot routine and so on).

It wasn't me!

Might just be me, but personally, I'd say don't go near the cushions until you genuinely can't detect any balance issues without them. Do exercises shooting on blank cards, focusing on your balance and inner position until your groups are small, round and consistent and you can't detect any sway or issues with your triggering, then do the same without kit (Short sessions to avoid any strain, and might be best to wear boots and trousers at least), then move onto the cushions. If you can still detect any sway or twitches to correct yourself, your stability isn't good enough to be worked out by them and will only be magnified until it's a real problem. Think of it like an extension tube. If your hold is good enough, your sight picture may clear up and the accuracy of your aiming process will be improved, but if you haven't got the basic hold, you just see more movement until you fook up your head, develop flinches and triggering issues and your shooting goes to hell.

Thirdfox

Thanks for the advice guys, I've been hitting around 93 in training but I'm still adjusting the basic hold so I might hold off on cushions then. Got to get rid of shocking flyers too.

Walk before I run and all that... (though as a child I learnt walking before crawling apparently!)

But the cushions do sound like a good idea, once I've got my standard position to work on.