With warmer, or flat-out hot, weather upon us, this is a good time to examine how and why we train. For some people, training at an indoor range may be their only option based on location and local land-use regulations. But the truth is that choosing an indoor range, even if you have other options, may be greatly advantageous during the summer months.
TRAIN LIKE YOU FIGHT
This piece of so-called conventional wisdom maintains that the environmental conditions in which you practice shooting should mirror, as closely as possible, those in which you are most likely to have to employ your firearm – whether that’s for self-defense or competition. While there is some merit to the idea of being acclimated to performing in the expected surroundings, only allowing yourself to train in the heat and humidity can be a roadblock to genuine skill-building. When trying to perfect fundamentals, having sweat, tiredness, dehydration, sunburn, and bugs, chipping away at your focus can severely reduce the amount of improvement possible in a practice session. Furthermore, the summer heat may be enough to turn the grip of your firearm into an ad hoc branding iron.
TRAIN TO SUCCEED
Perhaps a better moniker to live by would be “train to succeed”. What does that mean? Of course you want to succeed. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t train at all! But the idea is to approach every individual training session with the following question:
“What am I trying to succeed at today?”
If the answer is to validate a well-rehearsed skill under more lifelike conditions, an outdoor practice session in the peak of summer might be the way to go. But if you are trying to isolate and improve on individual components of firearms use—consistent trigger press with no flinch, or a smooth draw from the holster—exposing yourself to uncomfortable weather elements will hinder your training goal, not help it. This is where indoor ranges and gun clubs are truly a boon to the hot weather shooter. Temperature and light controlled, with protective barriers on either side of your lane, indoor ranges offer fixed conditions for you to track your progress against, without the interference of hot weather and all the distractions that come with it.
With many indoor ranges offering tactical and performance shooting courses, as well as competitive matches that incorporate movement and multiple targets, confining your training to the indoors doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice working on any of your shooting-related skillsets. Training should be about identifying gaps in your skillset and working methodically to improve them, not about proving how tough you are or what you can endure. Even in military and police training, live-environment rehearsals are often the capstone exercise after several weeks or months of instruction in controlled environments.
If you are relatively healthy or engage in even light activity like walking or bike riding, the temperature will have less effect than is often imagined. Your ability to execute the fundamental marksmanship consistently and on-command are far more important for shooting effectively, regardless of the context. So don’t subject yourself to unnecessary obstacles or impediments to successful practices. Air-conditioned ranges with even lighting are not “cheating” or “short-changing yourself.” They’re a tool to help you focus your practice sessions on developing key skills to the point of subconscious competence. Once you’ve achieved that, layering hardship into your future training will probably not be as hard as you think.
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