Dry fire fit is a unique idea. It combines something most of us here enjoy. That is shooting and working out. Shooting and working out do have a few things in common. Both shooting and working out can be frustrating. Both can be dangerous to beginners. Shooting and working out requires proper form, discipline, and works some essential skills. Dry fire fit combines dry fire training with an active fitness regimen. The program is contained into a deck of cards.
Deck of Cards
I used the deck of cards style workouts while deployed quite often. A lack of equipment and room quickly makes exercise boring. I like variety in my exercise. A program that repeats itself over and over loses me quickly. The deck of cards kept things interesting. It’s simple. Make a list of exercises first. Take a deck of cards and shuffle them. You start at the top of your list and work your way down. You pull a card off the top of the deck and the number on the card is the number of reps you do.
These cards work on the same principle. Draw a card, and follow the instructions. These instructions involve dry firing your weapon as you exercise. The benefits are pretty clear. You are training with an elevated heart rate, blood pressure, and fatigue. This is an accurate representation of what you may feel like in a real defensive shooting situation. Your heart will be racing. You mind will be blank. In short, it will be rough.
I’m currently dripping sweat onto my dining room floor and catching disapproving looks from my wife. The reason being is the first thing I do when I get home is work-out. I just so happened to receive this deck of cards this evening so I took them for a spin. I haven’t researched any plan, or really how the cards are supposed to be used. I shuffled them, grabbed a water bottle and headed outside straightaway.
The Dry Fire 16
I figured I’d do a warm up and then 16 random cards. This is to mimic the Daily 16. The Daily 16 is a Marine Corps invention that involves calisthenics, stretching and cooling down. The Daily 16 is pretty easy to do. Especially with the cool down and warm up being part of the 16. With this in mind, I wanted to challenge myself with 16 exercises. My warm up and cool down was separate.
To begin with, the cards are rated Easy, Medium, Hard, and Extreme. I do find these ratings accurate. The different exercises stress different muscle groups. They don’t require any real equipment, just something to dry fire. I used an SW99 because of its DA/SA trigger. Safety is always a priority, so with this in mind, I loaded the weapon with a snap cap. Snap caps fill the chamber. This ensures no live rounds sneak in there.
The fates decided it was leg day. So I did pistol squats with a dry fire at the beginning and the apex of the move. Next was side lunges. This had me using a wall as cover. As soon as I reached the bottom of the lunge I was exposed and ‘fired’ The next move is hard to describe. It had me extending my leg forward and rotating it to the rear. This made me form a table top. Keeping the weapon straight and on target required a lot of balance. I won’t cover my entire work out, but it was good. I felt good with most moves. The only one I skipped was the roll. This was because I workout in a sand pit. Beyond that, I refused to skip any other moves.
Keep Moving
I figure my first few workout will not extremely intense. This is because I have to stop and read the card. Once I recognize the card’s title, and associate it with a move things will move faster. Regardless, I felt thoroughly worked out. I figured I could 20 cards and have a nice solid workout. Especially when I begin recognizing the exercises. What’s most important is that I enjoyed the workout. My body was challenged, and at the same time my mind was always working. I recognized weak points in my non-dominant hand shooting. All things considered, I’m excited to see where I’ll be in the next few weeks.
