Grip & Recoil Control

From C-class to Grandmaster

Ask any good shooter, what is the most important part of shooting, as a skill - they will say "Fundamentals".

And of all Fundamentals, Grip is the Most Important One.

Fundamentals

Fundamentals are:

• Grip
• Trigger
• Aim

Why Grip Is Important

Of all Fundamentals, Grip is the most important one. It defines recoil control, directly influencing speed.

When shooting at speed it directly affects accuracy:

• Set speed at a constant and use weak grip - you will get poor accuracy.
• Strengthen the grip - accuracy improves immediately.

Don't trust me - watch Bob Vogel or Charlie Perez videos on grip and how it basically affects everything.

More than just Recoil Control

But there's more to grip than just just recoil control!

Good grip stabilizes the gun not only in recoi, but also during the trigger pull. It's easiest to see in rapid dryfire with a red dot and trigger with return spring, e.g. running fast bill drills in dryfire with realistic trigger press. I guarantee you will be able to reduce dot movement by simply applying more support hand pressure.

At higher levels - grip even influences your "Aim", being directly involved in improving quality of proprioception in critical parts of your shooting platform:

• fingers
• thumbs
• wrists
• forearms

Basically everything you can "point" with.

"Regular" Grip Progression

Before we dive-in into principles and techniques, lets take a look at somewhat "typical" grip progression most shooters go through.

1. Finger & Palm Positioning aka "Grip Technique" (D-to-C-class shooters)
2. Engaging Wrist / Pointing Thumbs (C-to-B-class shooters)
3. Picking elbow configuration, optimizing for stiffness (B-to-A, maybe low M-class shooters)
4. "Grip Strength Uber Alles" aka "Crush Gun, Run Fast" (high A-to-M, maybe GM-class shooters)
5. "Grip equals Platform", "Pressure equals Focus", Grip Pointability (high M-to-GM-class shooters)

It took me a while to go through these steps, but hopefully, using these instructions, you won't have to.

This Post & Video's Goals

Having this typical progression as a context, hopefully, these instructions will allow you to

• Understand Principles of Grip and Recoil Control
• Develop Effective Personal Technique
• Practice Efficiently
• Improve Physical Conditioning and Recovery
• And progress faster than I did

Mechanics of Recoil

Before we start working on a technique, lets take a look at a few basic physical principles of Grip and Recoil Control:

1. Pendulum
2. Lever
3. Conservation of Momentum

1. Pendulum

Pendulum is a simple model of harmonic motion, a weight suspended on a string. Modifying the length of the string will change the speed of the swing.

With same amount of energy - shorter pendulum will swing faster.

When you're shooting a continuous string - you will be in somewhat harmonic motion, with recoil delivering repeat impulses to your body. Allowing movement at the wrist will make your "pendulum" shorter, and result in faster, harder to control movement. Locking the wrist and allowing movement at elbow and shoulder will result in longer, slower "pendulum" and drastically increase Recoil Control.

2. Lever

Lever allows one to have mechanical advantage and move more mass with less force. In this case the force is produced by expanding gases, and the lever is the grip of the handgun.

The further away from the barrel we put our hands - the more advantage recoil will have over us.

Thus it is critical to grip the gun as close to the barrel and high on the beavertail as possible.

3. Conservation of Momentum

Bullet weighs very little, but moves very fast. Slide is much heavier and moves much slower.

In order to reduce the speed of the receiving part of the system (bullet-handgun) - we need to put more mass behind the gun.

Additionally it is critical to provide good solid connection of that mass, and make sure it is not interrupted.

Average male's hand weighs around 20 Oz, adding a forearm to this equation will result in 60 more ounces per arm. Shoulder involvement will yield 100 more ounces per arm, and fully stiff hands and arm configuration will connect the trunk, resulting in 1500 more ounces.

It's important to mention, that bad weak hand grip will result in compromised connection of weak side mass, resulting in half of the mass lost from the equation.

This is why it's critical to make sure that weak hand doesn't move realtive to the gun in recoil.

After that it's important to make sure that wrists stay inline with forearms and don't dampen the impact, delivering it straight to the elbows and shoulders.

Constant Refinement

As you progress through practice and conditioning, physical properties of your shooting platform will change.

• finger skin thickness
• callouses
• deep palm muscles
• wrist tendons configuration
• weight distribution
• comfortable elbow angles & platform length

This is why it's useful to re-configure your grip from time to time. Adjusting it to your newly found strength and picking the most optimal configuration for stiffness and control.

Refining The Grip

1. Build
   • no target, look at your hands
   • start with strong hand as high on beavertail as possible
   • obtain front-to-back rectangular clamp, not a monkey-banana round grip
   • position finger on the trigger and pin it to the rear
   • optimize depth of trigger finger placement by rotating the grip left-right
   • open your thumb up, using base of the thumb / palm to still hold the strong-hand grip
   • position your support hand high under the trigger guard, as close as possible to your strong hand fingers
   • obtain left-to-right rectangular grip, crushing your strong hand into the gun's grip with your support hand
   • engage the wrists by pointing the thumb a bit downward, this should flex the muscles in the base of the thumb, greatly increasing pressure from support hand's palm into the handgun's grip
2. Extend
   • keep looking at your hands
   • while maintaining the established grip - slowly extend your elbows, while flexing wrists downwards
   • apply more pressure in the grip gradually as you extend - this should feel as locking the platform in place
3. Index
   • finish the extension, naturally allowing your gun to settle in the place of your choosing.
   • you should see your sights aligned, if you dont - repeat the previous step (Re-Extend) while paying attention to your sights.
   • adjust extension / elbow / wrist angles and configuration if necessary to make the sights align
   • we're not working with the target, only sights on a clear background
4. Focus
   • repeat previous steps until (1-to-3) until sight alignment happens naturally
   • collapse the shooting platform going into high/low-ready and slightly relaxing the grip in both hands
   • look at the target, focus on the Alpha-zone and imagine a "virtual crosshair" in your POA
   • keep looking at it and establish the shooting platform on top of the "virtual crosshair"
   • reposition your feet / body if sights appear aligned, but off the POA with repeatable offset
   • work on consistency in all 3 previous steps if offset isn't the same everytime
   • once initial presentation is more or less consistent - you can start developing obtaining the shooting platform from draw, reloads and transitions

All these steps can and must be done in dry-fire, but last 2 (Re-Index and Re-Focus) will help you much more if done Live.

If you’re a B-class and above - you probabably have some experience in proper Live-Fire -> Dry-Fire calibration/progress cycle and should be able to use the full algorithm in dry-fire to its full potential.

But if you’re new - I suggest you first try these improvements in Live-Fire, without starting conditioing yet.

Live-Fire - Dry-Fire Cycle

For the best cost / benefit ratio - grip and fundamentals need to be improve in Live-Fire - Dry-Fire Cycle.

It's important to note, that the Cycle starts in Live-Fire.

We're developing a dynamic, live-fire, service-pistol-caliber capable shooting platform. We are the platform.

You must understand the strength requirements and the dynamics of the recoil impulse in order to improve.

If you're a B-class and above - you probably have enough experience to immediately try these 4 steps in Dry-Fire.

But if you're new - I highly recommend you first verify steps 1 and 2 (Build & Extend) on the Range, in order to avoid the Training Scars.

First Range Trip

Start with steps 1 & 2 (Build & Extend) on the Range in Dry-Fire.

After a few reps when you feel more comfortable holding the gun - go live with singles. Load 1 round per mag if you're completely new or coaching a new shooter.

Don't death grip the gun, but find a configuration that feels strong and most controllable.

Progress through Singles, then Controlled Doubles, then the Bill Drill (6 shots, single target).

Further progress can be made by watching my other video "Deep Practice 101"

Note about Discomfort and Pain

Quick note about discomfort and pain, since this is something you're going to experience sooner or later, while working on your grip and recoil control.

When you're just starting out - use shorter, extremely focused & deliberate practice sessions. Split them in few through the day if you want. Ignore skin discomfort, but try to avoid any muscle pain at first.

Generally almost all levels of pain in the skin are acceptable and can be ignored.

Muscle pains should be listened to, but can be ignored up to medium levels. Do understand though that higher levels of muscle pain means decreased muscle capacity and might affect your performance during matches and decrease training value during practice. Tendons, Ligaments & Joint (TLJ) pain is always a risk and SHALL NOT be ignored. Any level of TLJ pain will mean decreased capacity. You should work through increasing TLJ pain ONLY in Physical Therapy, preferably at no-higher-than discomfort/tickling levels and under medical supervision.

If you can't tell what kind of tissue is injured and experiencing pain - consult with someone who can. Or just YOLO it. You will go down with an injury sooner or later. Might as well get used to it.

Physical Therapy

If you practice enough - you will get some pain & inflammation in your muscles, tendons, or ligaments. Best way to manage it is to start PT right away.

I use my own variation of The Spinal Flow Yoga Tennis/Shooter Elbow recovery exercises, which is described here

I recommend you do it daily & as a warmup before all of your gym and dryfire practice sessions.

Stretching is your friend, do it often. Also ice water buckets help a lot. Not even full ice bath, but just enough to submerge your forearms.

Exercises and Physical Conditioning

Now that we're done with the warmup and PT, its time to cover physical conditioning for grip and recoil control.

Word of caution: don't do grip exercises first and then compound lifts second. This is dangerous, trust me, dropping a 200 lbs barbell on yourself and dealing with bruised cartilage is not fun.

I recommend dumbbells for mobility and safety instead of the barbell. If you're an experienced lifter - sure, go ahead. Just maybe test first how much grip strength you actually lose after doing grip specific exercises.

Non-Grip Specific Exercises

• Normal, Decline & Inclinle Dumbbell Bench Press. Adding rotation and moving towards centerline to engage chest & wrists more.
• Decline Bench Press can be done one hand at a time, after a quick set of situps, to engage core even more.
• Dips are good for engaging triceps & wrists together. At the top - push yourself further up and lean forward, kinda going into handstand - to get more wrist and shoulder range of motion.

Grip Specific Exercises

• Hammer Levering is great for wrist strength. But you have to be careful and not overdo it to avoid inflammation. Start with once-a-week schedule
• The best pure isometric grip exercise is this grip dumbbell row. Fat Grips and clones are available everywhere and compatible with most dumbbells. Focus on keeping the grip stength constant, without touching the floor. The short periods of acceleration and deacceleration will be the most beneficial moments for your grip in that exercise.
• Pull-Ups
• Farmer Holds and Walks

Video

This post is also available in Video Format on my Youtube: