The following is an assemblage of different things we have been asked by individuals who have found themselves in one or more of these predicaments at shoots in the past. We felt addressing them would be of interest to all.
“I’m at a big tournament. I’ve shot 300 rounds in the last couple of days between all the side events I’m in, and I have 200 rounds to go today. I’m tired, it’s cold, my spouse and work keep calling me with questions or problems. I slept terribly in the hotel last night. I have all of these distractions and I’m getting worn out from all the shooting. How do I keep my focus and buckle down and do my best?”
The short answer to all of these is to prevent yourself from getting into them in the first place by planning better. For a year, you should go to smaller tournaments and try different things and see what works for you.
So let’s list the specific things in the above situation and take them on one by one.
– At a big tournament
– Shot 300 targets in the past two days
– Have 200 to shoot today
– Tired
– Spouse and work calling with problems
– Slept terribly in the hotel last night
– Getting worn out from all the shooting.
Well, when the tank is empty, it’s empty, we’re sorry to say. There really is no quick recovery from a situation like this, so we yield to the 6 P’s: “Prior planning prevents piss-poor performance!”
A person who finds themselves in a situation like we described above has not done a sufficiently good job of goal setting, situational awareness, and training. The first time a shooter goes to a big shoot they are excited because it is their first big blast. They enter way too many events without looking at the tournament as a five-day marathon. Instead, they see it as a five-day dessert-eating marathon.
Our first lesson is to register early and space your side events out over the first three days and shoot only the main event the last two days. Avoid 8 AM start times. However. everyone will have an 8 AM start if there is a three or four-day main, so be aware of your start times.
Pick wisely, allowing for things like sleep, nutrition, conversation, and dinner engagements with friends. Eat an early dinner and get in bed early, because sleep is the number one most important part of performance at a big shoot.
We have been traveling and performing for 30-35 weeks a year for 27 years, and doing so has taught us many things about being on the road. We can get by with the best nutrition and exercise, but we have learned that hydration and sleep are the two most important things to sustain high levels of performance. And as we said earlier, when the tank is empty, it is empty.
Beginning two weeks out getting eight good hours of sleep is really important. And begin drinking athletic drinks that have electrolytes in them and begin to store them up in advance, because the rate of electrolyte depletion is greater than the replenishment rate!
Read about this study done by the NFL on sleep and you will become an instant believer. It highlights a situation that had plagued national teams for years. The coaching staff could not understand how their teams could practice a new play the whole week and then on Sunday when they ran the play, it was as if the players had never been introduced to it.
They found that their players were not getting 8 hours of sleep at night, and as a result, were not remembering what they had learned the previous day at practice.
It seems that our sleep cycles are broken up into two-hour segments with each segment doing something different. And they discovered that the last two-hour segments were when the brain put what it learned that day into permanent memory, explaining why their players performed as poorly as they did.
When we go on the road to coach our three or four-day clinics, we must have sleep and good deep sleep. We leave the range at 5:15 and go straight to the restaurant and have our evening meal. We are back at the hotel no later than 7:45 pm and in bed. We might not go to sleep till 8:30 or 9, but we are in bed. Maybe doing email or watching TV, but we are resting.
Sleep is really important. If you have trouble getting to sleep, use a sleep aid. But please try some different ones when you are not at a big shoot to see how they affect you. And don’t take them on a full stomach because it could delay them going to work for a while. We carry a “Sleep Aid” made by Kroger for those restless nights, and they work great for us. They are over the counter and are not habit-forming.
Something as simple as taking your own pillow will go a long way to making any bed you are in feel more like you’re at home. Before we knew this, Gil would periodically take a Tylenol PM in the evening to help him sleep and he could not hit a high incomer with a spreader load the next day until about 10:30 or 11 AM. We could never figure out why until we finally put two and two together. He stopped using them and that’s when we stumbled on to the Sleep Aids. We have been using them ever since.
We have a customer who lives more than two hours from the weekend tournaments he shoots, and he could never pattern a cause and result on his tournament scores. So we told him to monitor his nutrition, and for one tournament get up and drive there the next morning and observe the results. And then for the next tournament, we told him to drive the night before, stay in a motel and shoot and observe the results.
Wow, what an obvious game-changer it was for him! Now he knows for him to shoot his best he must go the night before and get rest with his pillow in a motel close to the shoot, and he will have a better opportunity to perform his best.
Another area that is a must for attention is different nutrition and hydration before, during, and after a shoot. In fact, nutrition during a shoot is something we see overlooked by almost all shooters.
For example, different nutrition and hydration before, during, and after a shoot. Nutrition during a shoot is something we see overlooked by almost all shooters. If you shoot many big shoots, you will find yourself in a situation where you finish up an event and are going to have to start another in about an hour and 15 minutes. You don’t have time for a full meal and recovery from digestion, so you need to know what your body likes to sustain a high level of energy over a longer period of time.
Again, here is where paying attention to your nutrition and hydration at smaller shoots pays big dividends. A great place to research nutritional snacks is a bike shop. Cross-country bikers have many great supplements specifically made for both quick bursts of energy and sustaining energy levels to help you make it through another event. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
But be sure and try the supplements at a smaller shoot or in an extended practice session to see how your metabolism reacts to each different one. If the reactions are all just about the same and positive, then go with the one that doesn’t taste like cardboard!
So, as you can see, making a situation at a major shoot work for you rather than against is a process of elimination. Having a peak performance starts months (maybe a year) in advance by planning your practice days, your training times at the gym, and the smaller tournaments leading up to the major shoots you are going to attend and want to peak in. Build a calendar of events for yourself and commit to what it takes to give you the ability to have a peak performance!
After winning The Masters for the 6th time, Tiger Woods said, “Everything I do in my life is to improve my golf game.” Wow, talk about commitment!
In summary, use small shoots to try different routines with sleep, nutrition, liquids, nutrition on the course, and turning your phone off when performing, because when the tank is empty it is empty. Your job, through planning, is to get the best mileage you can out of your body and your mind.
And remember, standing too much will wear you out!
It matters not where you are, provided wherever you are, you are all there. Our student Dean Olson said it best when he said for you to win on tournament day, “you gotta have your family life, personal life, and business life in order to be all there in the tournament!”
Having to field phone calls from family or business while trying to have a peak performance is futile. Part of your ritual when entering a performance should be turning your cell phone off – period.
If you just can’t, then lower your expectations and have some fun, and tend to business as it comes up. But be aware that others are trying to have a good showing and if your phone keeps ringing, there just might be some words exchanged!
