Shooting: Top points for standing position- Left Arm & Hand

In my earlier post I discussed about correct positioning of your feet and the muscle involvement. Well, there are many more points I will tell you about.

Left Arm and hand are the most crucial parts that come in contact with the rifle first. Mounting the rifle on your left hand and the way you do it, matters a lot. Our main focus is to create a stable platform to rest upon and keep our body as relaxed as possible. Remember! The more muscles involved more movement will be transferred over to the rifle. Our left arm is a continuation of support from our left foot, left leg and hip. Your balance and your NPA (Natural Point of Aim) are the two main things involved for maintaining the stability and relaxation. All that we need to think about is that our rifle resting close to our centre of gravity shouldn't disturb the balance more than required. Our elbow, how & where we place it decides how the arm will be angled which can also be changed by the hand and rifle contact but eventually it starts with the elbow.

I keep my Elbow on my hip bone

Placement of Elbow When we place our elbow we find a point where its more comfortable to place it. Mostly it goes right on the hip bone or just in front of the stomach. The more outer you go towards the stomach, the more soft tissues get in contact to hold up the rifle. Well, In my opinion the hip bone creates more stability than muscles. While under stressed situations or during competitions, there is a chance of more pulse reactions as we tend to tense our muscles. Lower NPA and backwards angle of the arm is created with an upside placement of the elbow.

Abhinav in Olympics London

Talking about NPA, it can be controlled by moving your elbow up/down or sideways. Moving the elbow sideways for the sake of changing the NPA should NEVERRR be done. The proper way is to move the whole position starting from your feet. Moving your elbow up and down can temporarily fix your height of NPA but adjusting your cheek piece and butt plate are a more preferred option. Always make sure you don't tense your arm and shoulder when in position. The downside for when the elbow is higher than the hip is the same as placing it on the stomach giving you less stability instead adjust your butt plate.

Hand position The left hand holds up the rifle and aligns it with the target. Our hand is the last point of contact in the chain holding up the rifle. The support column should be kept as relaxed as possible. There are no rules as to how the hand should be holding the rifle regardless of the fact, it shouldn't touch any other part of the body i.e. Right hand, chest/ jacket. There are three hand positions i.e. On the Fist (rifle rests upon the knuckles), Between two fingers and On palm of the hand. Other than these three there are several variant ways of holding the rifle but I will not go so deep in this conversation because these three positions are the common ones having no major disadvantages.

Between fingers Keeping the rifle between the fingers usually the index finger and the middle finger is another high hand position. This hand position was more commonly used with older rifles of Feinwerkbau 300 or 700 and other similar models and it seemed comfortable because the rifles in earlier times had more rounded front stock. You find wider flat front stock of rifles these days and its nearly impossible to fit the rifle between two fingers. People mostly don't use this technique because its more painful and wobbly.

On the Fist Resting your rifle on your fist seems to be more comfortable involving less muscle contact. By folding your fingers backwards and resting your rifle on your knuckles creates a stable platform. The wrist is still to be kept straight because that position will require the least amount of tension to uphold.

Less Muscle Contact= Less Tension= Less Rifle Movements

While creating a fist, don't tense the hand at all, just fold your fingers backwards and let the rifle rest on your knuckles leaving your thumb free on the side and your fingers too. To use this position perfectly, your fingers have to be able to bend enough that a horizontal surface creates when the wrist is straight. If you can't, the wrist will bend in place of your fingers accounting to

this which adds more muscle activation and rifle movements. Coming from my experience, my middle finger knuckle is higher than the index finger which makes it easy for me to angle my rifle inwards, closer to my head. There are no rules for where on the hand the rifle should be resting, place it where you feel is comfortable. You just need to keep the tension levels intact how ever you place your hand.

Palm of the Hand Using your palm of the hand is the lowest position one can use most preferably for those who have long arms. This position doesn't really require a glove as it might even disturb the stability because it acts like a sponge. Most shooters have opted for a thinner glove or a worn out one. A low hand position like this does bring down the overall CoG (center of gravity) of the position which theoretically would decrease position oscillations. How to hold the hand varies highly between shooters worldwide. Some keeping it on the palm of the hand, some on the fist keeping their fingers inwards or outwards. Angle the hand right instead and the rifle will rest on the thumb and a finger or two. On ina larger angle; the thumb and the side of the hand (reverse position from above). Depending on how you turn the hand, the rifle will align with the target differently.