Two Things That Can Help You Hit Your Firearm Target: Breathing & Hydration
If you'd like to improve your shot groups, you can get new firearm optics. However, there are two important things that you can do to improve the way your firearm and the optic system works: how you breathe and your hydration. Here's what you need to know.
Control Your Breathing
When your breathing is controlled, it allows more oxygen to be carried throughout your body, which reduces your blood pressure, reduces the tension in your muscles, and improves your concentration. This essentially gives your body a calming effect, which can improve your aim. Also, breathing heavily or sporadically can affect the way you hold your firearm, which will affect your shot groupings. This is because any slight movement in your core, such as when your rib cage expands, can alter the site alignment between your eyes and the firearm optics.
It's important to pay attention to your breathing, but don't try to force it. Allow yourself to breathe naturally and be aware of when you exhale and inhale. As you start to inhale, line up your sites to set up your aim. As you start exhaling, you'll want to hold your breath very briefly, pull the trigger, then continue breathing. This stoppage in breathing will keep your core rigid and keep your aim accurate.
Stay Hydrated
Another important thing to do to get the best shot grouping possible is to be hydrated. Research shows that mild dehydration can affect your ability to concentrate. Dehydration also causes your blood to be more concentrated with sugar and sodium, which can affect your blood pressure and heart rate. Therefore, dehydration can make it difficult for you to remain calm, clear-minded, and focused, which are all necessary in order to get a good shot grouping.
More importantly, dehydration can affect your vision. When you are dehydrated, your eyes can get dry. Dry eyes can cause blurred vision, which could definitely affect your ability to line up the optics to get a good shot. And since there are no adjustments on firearm optics to compensate for poor vision, it's important to be hydrated.
However, don't wait until you are thirsty before you take a refreshing drink of water. By that time, you are already mildly dehydrated and could be feeling the effects of dehydration. Mild dehydration is defined as a loss of 1.5% of water volume in the body. The feeling of thirst occurs when you are 1-2% dehydrated.
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