Until everything you do when practicing is the same as you do in a tournament, you will not find any real satisfaction in your performance or consistency.
To date, we have written 16 books and have six DVDs and countless video lessons on our Knowledge Vault. But it seems to us that either people don’t trust their routines or practice them enough so they can be trusted when shooting a tournament. Several of our monthly Coaching Hours since 2001 have been dedicated to what routines are, how to make and use them, what they are for, and why they are so necessary. But it seems that few really go to the extent to practice them enough to use them when they shoot tournaments.
Routines are personal and are designed to keep you from having to think about what you are doing when performing. This is the origin of Vicki’s quote: “Thinking while performing is a distraction!” In our DVD “The Three Routines of Sporting Clays”, we talk about the pre-shot, post-shot, and correction routines. But today we are going to talk about a few other must-have routines for high-level performance.
Hopefully, by now you have figured out the foods that you eat the day before and during the tournament and how much sleep you need to perform well physically. If not, you’ve got some work to do – that is, if you want to perform well. Preparation begins further out for a three or four-day shoot, as opposed to a one-day shoot. But the one-day shoots are where you try different things before, during, and after to see what combination of nutrition and sleep you need to perform well.
These include things like “how far can you drive the morning of the shoot and still put in a good performance at the tournament?” “Do you continue to stand or sit down while you are waiting to shoot?” If you travel and need to sleep in a hotel and you are driving, take your pillow and you will sleep better. You should also know what kinds of food and what quantities and what times you need to eat the night before and the morning of a one-day shoot. You will need to know when will be the last time you will shoot before the tournament.
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