Owning a firearm comes with demands. You’ll need to learn control and safety skills, among others. You’ll also have to practice your range for effective shots. Each demand requires time, space, and, more importantly, fitness and readiness.
In fact, staying fit is as crucial as creating time and space. Once you have your firearm ready—let’s say you got a receiver with 80 lowers—and there’s the outdoor space to practice your range, how do you stay fit and ready for shooting?
While the question is pragmatic, requiring intentional answers, this article provides everything you need.
Why Do You Need Outdoor Shooting?
Target shooting can be done indoors or outdoors. If indoors, you’re practicing your moves and range within the confines of a building, which could be your home or others’. If outdoors, you’re mainly on a field, in a garden, or at any outdoor space where you can practice shots without hurting a person.
Although indoor shooting is safer due to several precautionary steps involved, it’s less expensive and more limiting. On the contrary, outdoor shooting shows you the real deal. You benefit from the broad field, feel the wind against you, interact with the outside world, and move your body more freely while improving your firearm skills.
Besides, outdoor shooting comes with a rush of adrenaline. This energy boost could be due to access to nature or the curiosity of handling and trying out a gun. Aside from that, it could serve as a form of stress-relieving meditation and healing mechanism. Finally, outdoor shooting builds your self-esteem and teaches you self-discipline.
What Do You Need To Know Before Outdoor Shooting?
Before you venture into the vast, quiet setting to shoot, you should check some safety boxes. Some of the things you should do include the following:
- Research location: Unless it’s yours, you shouldn’t pack into a place and start shooting. You may face fines as a consequence of property intrusion. So, it’s always best to know if your ideal field is open to shooters. One way to do that is to research.
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- Be mindful of where you shoot: Although your instructor will ensure everything is safe, you’re in charge of the situation regardless. If the outdoor field is close to campsites, parking lots, or places where there are people, you should pay attention to where you shoot.
- Respect nature: Being an outdoor shooter requires a lot of responsibilities. And to be responsible means to respect nature. Therefore, you shouldn’t shoot at trees, birds, or rocks. Moreover, it’ll be respectful if you don’t litter the place with spent casings and other training items.
- Practice safety rules: When practicing outdoors, you should stick with basic safety rules. One rule is to keep your firearm unloaded until you’re ready to shoot. Another is to point your gun away from people and keep your finger outside the triggers when not using the firearm.
In a nutshell, you need to tick these boxes, including tips and measures, before you shoot outdoors. They’re required to keep you and the environment safe.
How Do You Stay Fit And Ready For Outdoor Shooting?
Outdoor shooting comes with a catch: It tests your shoulders, muscles, and grip. Unless you’re fit and prepared for it, your training may not turn out the way you want it. But you can beat that through the following ways:
1.Get Your Things Ready
The first step to staying fit and ready is to gather everything you need for the moment. Apart from your firearm, outdoor shooting requires safety flags, grippers, eye and ear protection, gloves, and cleaning materials. You may also need some special clothing, such as tactical pants, range polo shirts, and closed-toed shoes.
2. Eat And Drink Right
Before moving out, you should eat light and drink plenty of water. For effective results, you should set yourself on lean protein and fiber days before the range. The protein helps build your muscle grip while the fiber reduces your blood pressure and inflammation. Both, alongside soda-free drinks, prepare your body for outdoor shooting exercises.
3. Consult A Trainer
A firearm trainer is a specialist in outdoor shooting. Most trainers are usually soldiers or combat officers. They know everything required for a perfect outdoor range. So, it’s essential to consult one for your training. Although consultation comes with a fee, you can’t beat the experience and support of a trainer. Engaging one is a decision that shows you’re fit and ready to begin.
4. Exercise Your Core
Shooting is primarily a test of muscles. If you have weak muscles, you can quickly tire out. Thus, you should exercise your core muscles, especially those around your trunk, pelvis, and abdominals. Your trainer could help you try out some basic exercises, such as plank, crunch, and push-up. Each strengthens your core, increases its stability, and gets you fit and ready for the shooting skills.
5. Exercise Other Parts
Besides your core muscles, you should exercise other body parts, such as your neck, shoulders, hands, and legs. It’ll help if you have your neck trained for mobility, your shoulders for flexibility, your hands for good grip, and your legs for stamina and endurance. If you have a trainer, the person will point you to the necessary training to improve each aspect for improved shooting fitness and readiness.
6. Have A Routine In Place
Are you shooting one off, or is it a continuous process? Of course, improved shooting range is a result of regular practice. But even that will amount to nothing if there’s no routine, schedule, or plan in place. Hence, you need to create one that allows you to train without missing a day. Alternatively, your trainer could help you prepare a fitting plan. In short, having a training routine shows your enthusiasm, fitness, and readiness.
7. Enjoy The Moment
There’s an unmistakable relationship between fun, fitness, and readiness. Humans are primarily ready and fit for what they consider pleasure. Shooting outdoors is another fun activity, as it’s regarded as a hobby. It can serve as a meditative purpose or a form of dopamine detoxing as well. So, living and enjoying the moment can fill you with such adrenaline, improving your shooting skills.
Conclusion
Shooting can be done indoors or outdoors. However, most gun owners prefer to do it outdoors because of access to nature and the freedom it brings. Before you engage in outdoor shooting, make sure to stay fit and ready for your range so that you can make the most of the moment safely and enhance your shooting skills.
