Today, I'm going from the gym to the range to get more experience shooting offhand after thrashing myself with a two hour workout. At the range, I'm going to do 10 minutes of ready drills. I do this just about every range session, so I have times and targets for comparison, to measure my performance. Then a timed, three-magazine rapid-fire exercise with 10 rounds in each mag. It's time I started working on mag changes.

Good on ya!  I need to work more on reloads too.

Definitely good to induce some physical stress to the process.

Thanks for the encouragement.

My accuracy was about the same but my shot times were lower by about 15%. I felt more tired than I did muscle soreness or weakness. It felt more challenging mentally than it did physically; I didn't feel like I was making decisions as quickly and I was hesitating before taking some shots even with the sights on target. That seems to be reflected on the shot times.

It's all kind of the opposite of what I expected. Which is why I do stuff like this. I'm going to do it again one of these days soon and make a conscious effort to focus on focusing and bearing down.

And ...  I sink at mag changes. That's okay, though. I haven't worked on it at all.

Today's training will be about 20 minutes on the dry-fire range with my wife's AR. She has a mil-spec trigger and I have Giessele SSA-E triggers on mine. I practice with hers as well as mine so I know the difference in the way they shoot.

Today's training will be the same drills as Wednesday, with the same rifle and ammo. I'll even ask for the same lane. I'm well-rested, well-fed, and feeling great.

More data points ...

"If you can't measure it, I can't improve it!"
-- A cornerstone of my consulting business

Accuracy was the same but shot times got faster.

Today's training is two hours of Olympic weights and an hour on the basement dry-fire range working on trigger control.

Today's training is Active Recovery. Swimming, 500 yards.

Today's training is two hours in the gym and 20 minutes on the dry-fire range.

Some days, I just do not want to go to the gym. Today is one of those days. I'm going to force myself to go anyway. I know that once I get in there and start warming up and stretching, my entire attitude will change and I'll start hitting it hard.

It's times like this that I tend to run my finger up and down the scar that runs the full length of my sternum and feeling the roughness of my sternum, where it grew back together after they cracked me open like a Dungeness crab to rebuild my heart for me. And I think about the Grim Reaper and his list. And that checkmark next to my name he had to erase when I survived. He can still see the remains of that checkmark next to my name and he don't like it. Not one little bit. He has his eye on me and is just waiting for me to fail. So I say, fuck that bastard, I'm going to the gym. He had his free shot at me and he screwed it up. I'm not going to give him another easy go.

Hell yeah!

I don't feel it every morning, but I still do it...and then feel better the rest of the day, mentally AND physically.

Today's training: 500 yards of swimming and a hundred rounds down-range (accuracy and ready drills).

This morning before work, core, consisting of 180 of each: Russian Twist w/ 15lb. kettlebell, situps w/ 10lb weight, side dips w/ 33lb dumbells.

I used the Steven Segal thread in GD for motivation..."I'll NEVER be like you Steven Segal, NEVER!"

Hoping to do some shooting in next few days.

That's some hard-core core work. Salute.

Today's training was an hour on the dry-fire range with the .300 BLK and 55 minutes of EMOMs at the gym starting soon.

Whew. I added weight to about half of my EMOM's yesterday. What a great workout!

Today's Active Recovery is 500 yards of swimming and a 1.5 mile run on a local trail that runs along a big river. If I get those done early enough, I'll go to the range for some ready drills. Otherwise, more time on the basement dry-fire range.

Today's training is a mountain work party. Four miles in, spend the day building a staircase up a muddy slope with the materials available; fallen trees, rocks, and gravel. I'm trading physical labor for the chance to learn some back-country engineering skills.

Wow, what a day. My sore spots have sore spots. It feels great to be able to do it but it's going to take a couple of days to recover.

Today's training is ... nothing. I can barely move today so I'm going to take it easy.

I learned how to build steps out of locally-sourced materials, aka rocks, ... as well as how much hard work it is. I mean, I already knew it was hard work but you never really know until you do it. It all got started by finding large rocks to use as the frame, then filling in the flat spots with gravel, and adding gravel where otherwise needed. There was no gravel nearby so we made our own by turning big rocks into little rocks with sledges. Then carried it in buckets to a three-foot wide trail perched on the side of a cliff. We rotated jobs all day and they were all physical. We all slowed down late in the day. Working with heavy stuff on a narrow trail with fatigued legs calls for more care. Kudos to the leader for his situational awareness and his control over our work pace.

If I ever encounter a situation where I need to build steps up a muddy slope with nothing but rocks and tools, I think I could build something serviceable. It might take a week if it's just me and there are more than a few steps, though.

I signed up for two more work parties this summer with the same leader.

Nice "classroom," too.

beautiful view!

It is, indeed. I hike on all four sides of that mountain. It's a 20- to 30-minute drive from home to this trailhead, traffic dependent.

20 swings, pass the tool. Three people of average hiker fitness can go almost indefinitely.

Sadly, I overdid it. By the time I got off the mountain, my left foot was going numb, my left abductor was so weak, I was having balance issues, and my left calf was burning in pain. I'm still feeling it. My doctor banned me from working out until Monday, when I can see him. He thinks there might be something else going on. He doesn't feel that the work party would have caused problems that would last this long.

So today's "training," like Saturday's through yesterday, is two long sessions of stretching and two half-mile walks on the treadmill at about 2 mph. The stretching is okay but the symptoms come back near the end of the walking. For point of reference, by the end of last summer, I was doing 15-mile day hikes with 3,000+ feet of elevation.

A minor set back in my training, I hope. I have a 6-mile, 25-obstacle race to run in September.

Remember, training should strengthen you, not break you!

A fair point. I sometimes forget I'm 67 years old and my body isn't as resilient as it used to be.

Any updates OP?
How are you doing?

I'm doing okay. I didn't think anyone was reading this so I sort of let it slide. I'll start updating it again. Thanks for checking in.

I still don't know what's wrong with my leg and hip but I'm getting an ultrasound on both legs tomorrow. It can't be a strain or pull; it's been too long with no change. I'm worried something has come loose inside an artery or vein and caused another blockage. I'll know soon enough.

Today's training will be upper-body-only yet again. Back, shoulders, arms, chest, and as much ab work as I can do without aggravating my leg and hip. I haven't done any road work in more than three weeks.

Thursday, I'm taking a drive to find a pace where I can shoot out to 300 yards so I can start working some long-range shooting into my regimens. Long-range for me, anyway.

Once I get some photos, I'll update my barricade and target stand threads with what i learned about them after a couple of intense days of using them.

I just found it to be an interesting thread.
And shitty that your leg is going numb. That's never fun!
Hopefully it isn't too serious and you can keep on truckin'.
I've found some inspiration in this thread, so hopefully you keep it going.
There must be a lot of public land by you for you to "go find a place to shoot".
Right now I only have 100yds and in at my place.
I really would like to find somewhere to stretch out the legs on some of my guns.
Once a year prairie dog shoots in South Dakota aren't enough...

Thanks! You've inspired me to keep it up.

I had to cancel some tests that were scheduled for tomorrow. My insurance company refused to pay for them and they want $4,500. It'll get sorted but it will likely be another month before I can get the tests scheduled. I firmly believe insurance companies like to beat their customers down so they'll give up and they and save money.

So I called my personal trainer and we're getting together this afternoon to figure out what I can and can't do so I can get back into the gym.

There are plenty of places to shoot long distances nearby. Of course, the easy ones are well known and get a lot of shooters who are about 1% as safe as I like to be. I want to find a pace that's hard to get to. The tend to get a lot less use. :)

It's always spooky shooting around people you don't know.
Out of curiosity, how much money is a personal trainer?
Insurance is a damn scam most of the time.
They never want to pull their end yet we pay them throughout the year...shitbags!

I agree about shooting around strangers. I had to stop shooting in California before we escaped, due to the nonsense that was getting more and more prevalent at the outdoor desert shooting sites. .

I'm a member of our local YMCA and I pay $190 for four sessions. Individually, they're $60 per session. Those are member prices. Add about 35% more for non-member prices.

Agreed about insurance companies. I've ad this appointment scheduled for a month and thy notified me of the estimate about 12 hours before my appointment. My co-pay should be 10%; they say it's 50%. It's about the gazillionth time I've had to reschedule health care to fight with them. Shitbags indeed. Well-said.

Today's training will be an hour of stretching, 500 yards of swimming, hot tub, and sauna. Then about 200 rounds of drills at the indoor range. Trying to decide if it will be a 5.56 carbine day or a .300 BLK day.

My new regime is resistance training on cable machines, followed by two days of stretch/swim/hot tub/sauna. Five days a week, weekends off. Which means each week will have a slightly different schedule but that's okay.

My trainer (who is also a physical therapist) set this up so I can maintain the fitness gains I've made while the doctors figure out what's wrong on my left side. She thinks it's the most I should do i my current condition and after working me for an hour yesterday.

I felt so froggy, I did 750 yards. For the extra 250 yards, I did some weird stuff. I tread water for 50 yards, swam with a water polo stroke for 100, and laid on my back and did egg-beater with my legs for 100. I didn't get any of the pain and loss of feeling I'd been getting "on land." The phrase my trainer used yesterday was "load-bearing." Anything that puts downward force (weight or pressure) on my left leg, causes it to hurt. The more weight/pressure and the longer it's bearing it, the more pain and the faster it starts losing feeling.

In the pool? Nada. Jack-shit. Bupkus. I was able to work the hell out of my legs and I didn't feel a thing ... until I got out of the pool. The first time I made a load-bearing move to use the ladder to get out, it started hurting instantly and was going numb by the time I got to the bench, ten feet away. It tightened up in all three places (calf, back of the thighs, hip) started acting like they were going to cramp. So I grabbed my stuff and walked over to the hot tub and got in it. A high-pressure jet and some massage and it was easily resolved. Both legs are tire and worn out now but feel the same. Looks like swimming is a winner until the docs figure out what's going on.

I had a great session at the range, too. I was very relaxed after swimming and it showed in my ready drill scores. I shot 70 pairs of shots and only had two of the pairs over two seconds. I know that's not fast but it's pretty good for me and I intend to get better. I shot one pair in 1.2 seconds. I felt like I was right down the middle of the groove for a good portion of the drills. It's a lot of the same, basic drill but it's giving me the muscle memory I need with coming up on target while flipping off the safety, acquiring the target and using the trigger properly. All 140 shots were in an organ on my Vital Guy targets. 25 yards, standing, off-hand. 5.56 16" carbine, PA 3x Prism, Blue Force Vickers strap.

It was a good day of training on both fronts.

I think 2 seconds or under for up/doubles with good hits @ 25 yards is good.  Like the mansaid, "take your time, in a hurry".  Only hits count, and speed comes with time.  You ARE on the right path!

We can easily do 300 at the pit we were at, I was running it before everybody showed up.

And can do over 400 at the top of the Ridge.  I know it's a drive for you though.  I'll text ya, we'll figure it out!

I'm bummed your leg is acting up!  Hopefully the..."pros"...can get themselves in gear and see what's wrong with you.

Thanks for the encouragement, Joe. It's not too far a drive for good shootin' with good company. I'm up for getting together again some time in June.

Today's training was about an hour in the basement dry-fire range working on my reset. I had some problems with double-firing about three months ago and added this to my weekly dry-fire regimen and haven't had any problems since. I don't usually go an hour but I seemed kind of obsessed with it today so I just rode it. I'm heading to the Y to get my laps in. I doubt I'll get in as much work as yesterday; I'm still feeling yesterday's a bit too much. I'll be good for 500 yards, though.

My big problems with swimming in the past were by terrible breathing form on the crawl and boredom. I'm using a snorkel and a bone-conduction headset now and that addresses both problems. I'm never going to swim competitively so it doesn't matter if I never develop perfect breathing form. And I can do just about anything as long as I have good music in my head. Game-changing training tools for me, for sure.

What do you have playing in the headset?  I had ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down" playing in a loop in my head for a while on yesterday's 4 mile run.

That's a tasty choice. It's on my phone and swimming doo-dad.

All sorts of stuff. Classic rock and metal mostly. I loaded about 300 songs onto it. Some all-time workout faves:

Life During Wartime, Talking Heads
Paradise by the Dashboard Lights, Meatloaf
Master of Puppets, Metallica
Guns of Brixton, The Clash
Lord of this World, Black Sabbath
Going Back to Birmingham, Alvin Lee and Ten Years After
ME-262, Blue Oyster Cult
Holiday in Cambodia, Dead Kennedys
Twilight Zone, Golden Earring
Little Sister, Steve Ray Vaughn
Beer Drinkers & Hell-Raisers, ZZ-Topp
Statesboro Blues, Allman Brothers
Keine Lust, Rammstean
Gunns & Roses, You Could Be Mine
One Step Beyond, Madness
Th Kids are Alright, Offspring
Suzy Q, Creedence Clearwater Revival

I've been trying to get back into running for two years but I may have done too much damage to my body to ever get there. Time will tell.

Walking is easier on the joints I've heard.
So the other day, I have a hill/trail that goes down to my woods.
I put on my plate carrier and loaded up my pistol mags and put on my belt.
I would walk down the hill, then up the hill, fire 10 quick shots to the A zone from 10 yds and repeat.
I did this for 60 rounds.
My score started going down towards the end haha.
It was good practice though and nice to see where I started failing.

Well done! Way to get after it. I know the feeling. It's kind of a strange thing; finding your own failure point. It's helpful and comforting knowing where it is, though.

Running is more work in less time. I was a runner in the past and several of my goals are all about doing things I used to do but had to stop due to my self-inflicted poor health. Joints aren't much of a problem, especially now at 175 pounds. It's my arteries and veins that are limiting me.

I hope to be able to shoot at home once we find the right piece of property. What you described sounds great.

Keep up the good work!

I've been hacking blackberries from sunup to sundown the past few days. It's great physical work but there's so much of it, I don't have time or energy for much of anything else when I'm going through this annual Spring rite. I should wrap it up today, though. I'd like to do resistance training tomorrow if I can hack it.

I bought some resistance bands, kind of an impulse buy, as I was getting bored of my regular workout routine and wanted to change it up to keep it interesting.
Is this the type of resistance training you're talking about or something else?
And do you have any good resistance band exercises?
With the blackberry bushes thing, we have an ongoing "yard expansion project" that never truly ends.
Mother nature has a way of taking over in a hurry haha, so the struggle is real.
I went so far to get a saw blade attachment for my weed whacker, then the following year we dug up the sumac roots with hand tools.
But we got more yard now and a shooting range!

I use resistance bands for a half-dozen wrist flexibility exercising as well as for my warm-up TABATA on EMOM day. They were a huge part of my early recovery from open-heart surgery, as recommended by my cardiac physical therapists.

I'll get back to you the specific exercises.

Resistance training is anything that provides resistance to muscles. Barbells and dumbbells are resistance. Kettlebells, cable machines, bands, it can be anything as long as it's resisting the movement of a muscle.

I bought a medieval looking thing for my 2-stroke weed-whacker but the thing scares me to death and I never mounted it. I ight make a zombie-fighting weapon out of it ...

Our blackberries wouldn't be so challenging if our property were flat. There are so many places where a hand-held weed-whacker is the only way to get to them.

Today's training is 19 stations of cable machines and an hour on the recombinant bike. Later today, I plan on spending 20 minutes or so in the basement dry fire range working on my trigger reset.

Today's training was 750 yards of swimming, with a nice soak in the hot tub before and after, with some time in the sauna at the end. Ahhhhhh.

I also spent some time reviewing a bunch of drills to see which ones I'd like to incorporate into my regimen.

Swimming is planned for tomorrow morning, then, later in the day, I'm getting a body analysis. It's supposed to give me a bunch of information about my body. What most interests me is my overall body fat percentage as well as my visceral (abdominal) fat percentage. It's the visceral fat that destroys organs and organ failure is the number 1 cause of "death by old age." I'm trying to eliminate as much visceral fat as I can so I'll still be alive when artificial organs become widespread. And that's how I'm going to live to be 150.

Elastic Band Exercises:

Frist, there are probably a half-dozen elastic band exercises out there for each muscle in your body. There are literally hundred of them. I recommend you start by answering a couple fo qestuons fro yoruself:

1) What hurts?
2) What do you want to develop/improve?

My answer to 1) is my left wrist, due to an injury about 48 years ago.
My answer to 2) now, is upper body flexibility.

So the exercises I do are heavily weighted toward wrist exercises and upper body stretching exercises. That may or may not work for you.

I started using elastic bands in cardiac physical therapy. When COVID came along, they closed the PT gym at the hospital and we were all on our own. So I just kept doing what I'd learned in PT. Which were what the called "Life Exercises" because they were designed too improve overall body fitness to make things easier in old age. Including:

-- Rows: Wrap the band around something, walk back to taken up the slack, then row the band towards you keeping your elbow in and your forearm parallel to the ground.
-- Back Presses: Wrap the band around something and turn around so you're facing away from whatever the band is wrapped around. Put one foot in front of the other, bend over, and push the handles on the bands to stretch the bands parallel with your back.
-- Bicep Curls: Stand on the band with a handle in each hand and curl them.
-- Reverse Curls: Same as bicep curls except palm facing down, using your forearms to lift it.
-- I forget the name. Stand on the band holding one handle in each hand together in front of you. Raise the bands until your hands touch your chin, keeping your hands together. Keep you back up and straight, important.
-- Flys: Stand on band with feet a bit wider than shoulders. Lift the handles up and straight out from the sides. Also important to keep you back upright and straight.

For stretching, I do an 8-minute TABATA. TABATA is the name of the guy who invented it. Mine consist of four exercises, one after another, then repeated. Eash has 50 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest.

-- Front stretch. Hold the band in front of you with two hands at shoulder width and the handles dangling down. At you own pace, stretch them outward and then bring them back together under control. Remember, this is a stretch, not an exercise. Adjust your hand position on the band so it's pretty easy to do. You don't want a lot of resistance.
-- Over the head: The older you get, the more important it is to stretch your shoulders. This is one of two areas you want to keep as flexible as possible as long as possible. It makes a big difference in the quality of life as you age. Hold the ban as in the front stretch. Lift the band over your head and as far back as you can, allowing your arms to rotate. You want to hold the band so that you feel it stretching the shoulders as your arms rotate but not so much that you feel pain. You want the muscle to have to stretch a little bit to get the arms behind you but no more.
-- Twists. Hold the band in front of you the same as in the front stretch. With you feet spread wider than your shoulders and with the toes pointing outward a little bit, twist your upper body to the left while keeping pressure on the band to keep it stretched. Try to pull into the stretch with the leafing hand but don't force anything. Then just reverse it and do the same on the other side.
-- Hip openers. This doesn't actually use the band but it's part of my TABATA because hips are other thing to keep flexible as you age. And strong too. This exercise consist of lifting one leg forward, then moving it in an arc to the side, then in an arc to the rear, then back to center and down. Then the same with the other leg. The second rep, I start by lifting it backward, then out, then forward then back. Then back to forward frost on the next set.

So, 50 seconds of front stretch, followed by 10 seconds of rest followed by 50 seconds of over-the-head, followed by ten seconds of rest, and so on, then repeated for a total of two circuits. Elapsed time, 8 minutes. It's a dynamic stretching series that will get your heart pumping and blood flowing a bit more that static stretches. This isn't the only stretching I do. I'm a stretching fanatic. I stretch for a total of 45 minutes before a workout or a swim. I stretch for 20 minutes in the morning when I get up, 20 minutes after eating supper, and about 10 minutes just before going to bed. That's a discipline I need to respect and keep up with if I'm going to expect this beat up old body of mine to compete in 6-mile obstacle course races. And, at the end of the day, it's great stuff to do to help with my clogged arteries, rock-hard veins, diabetic neuropathy, and so on. All are improved with the increased blood flow that comes from all the stretching I do. I have to work hard to stay alive now because I worked so hard for so long to destroy my body. I came awful damn close, too.

Let me know if you have any questions. I didn't list any of the dozen or so wrist exercises I do because they're specific to my injury.

Thanks for the write up!
Just wanted to get a general idea of what the bands are capable of helping.
I've been lifting dumbbells since April 1st this new, so still really new to all of this.
I got a decent deal on two 30lb bands and two 50lb bands.
Slowly been increasing my weight on the dumbbells and I can already feel a difference in my body, it's motivating!

You are quite welcome. Happy to do it. Resistance training is good for seeing results fairly quickly. It's also the best way to burn fat.

Well done! Keep up the good work!

Today's training is 12 hours of clearing out two storage units of junk gathered over the years that we just don't need anymore.

I got my body measurements report yesterday and the results could not possibly be better. My body fat is 13% and my skeletal muscle mass is 89.1%. The best news ... my visceral (abdominal fat) is at the bottom of the chart at rating of 2. Wow. I was not expecting that!

My trainer was impressed. She told me I'm a senior fitness god, LOL. I don't know about that but it's nice to see some numbers that show such positive results for all the hard work I put in.

Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of my 22nd and final heart attack and start of my 16-day stay in the cardiac ICU.

Good timing, eh? It's almost like someone planned it that way.

Now I just have to get my leg and hip sorted out so I can get back deep into fitness training. Spartan Games are in three-and-a-half months and I need every minute of it to get ready.

I'm going to try to get some time on the dry-fire range tonight, when my arms are gassed. Good time to work on trigger control and reset.

Wait now...let me get this right, you've had 22 fucking heart attacks?!
If that is correct and I read that right, you are a damn survivor man!!!

Yes Sir. Over four days. I agree; it's a miracle I'm still here. No two ways about it. I'm trying to do right by it.

Thanks!