Heart Rate Shooting Drill

This drill simulates the physical and mental demands of a high stress scenario, pushing your heart rate up and challenging your shooting skills. 

Testing Capabilities Under Stress

To illustrate how Sympathetic Nervous System activation impacts performance, try this Heart Rate Shooting Drill. It simulates the physical and mental demands of a high stress scenario, pushing your heart rate up and challenging your shooting skills. 

Drill Setup:

• Equipment: Safe firearm (cleared and checked), holster (if applicable), target at 7 yards, timer, and space for movement.
• Safety First: Ensure a safe range environment and follow all firearms safety rules.
• Procedure:
  1. Baseline (Cold): From a relaxed state, draw and fire 5 rounds at the target, aiming for a 6 inch group. Record your time and note how steady your hands feel.
  2. Stress Induction: Perform 20 burpees as fast as possible to spike your heart rate (aim for ~160 bpm; use a heart rate monitor if available). If you can’t do burpees due to range safety or injury, use large muscle groups to increase heart rate to the 160 bpm target like completing air squats, jumping jacks, or high knees.
  3. Immediate Follow Up: Within 5 seconds of finishing burpees, draw and fire 5 rounds at the same target. Record time and group size.
  4. Recovery: Rest for 2 minutes, focusing on slow, deep breaths (4 seconds in, 4 seconds hold, 4 seconds out). Repeat the 5 shot sequence and compare results.

What to Observe: After burpees, expect a wider shot group, shakier aim, and possibly rushed or confused decisions. This reflects SNS dominance, your body prioritizes survival over precision. With recovery breathing, your performance should improve, showing the PNS’s role in regaining control.

Takeaway: This drill reveals how physical stress degrades shooting performance. Regular fitness training and stress inoculation (practicing under elevated heart rates) build resilience, helping you perform better when it counts. Being prepared isn’t only about having your ammunition supply covered at AmmoSquared.com, it’s about elevating every part of your firearms preparedness and like it or not you’re the least accurate part of the weapon, ammunition and shooter system. Understanding where you stand at this very minute gives you the starting point to build your training plan.

Follow-on Training: If your shot placement was less than ideal with the heart rate increase, train to perform under stress by introducing the Thinking Man’s Game target published in June to elevate your critical thinking and engagement skills. Remember to have fun with it, train hard, and we’ll see you on the range!