Diets Influence On Shooting

I used to be a a caffeine and sugar junky. When I was younger I am certain that 70-80% of my calorie intake was of those two chemicals and it caused me a lot of health problems over the years. I do remember having jitters really bad but don't recall if it affected my shooting back then. Since getting back into the sport I had already been "dry" for years so I can't say with personal experience if it would hurt my scores, I would assume so though. Knowing that we want steady hands, I would think caffeine would mess up the ability to shoot. However, I shot next to a master/high master in a tournament in the summer of 11 and was surprised to see him drinking my old favorite, Mountain Dew. If you are not familiar with it, Mountain Dew is a very high sugar and VERY high caffeine soft drink. He was able to shoot a 99 in slow fire that day so I guess it didn't negatively affect his score! At another match, two shooters that came together stopped at a doughnut place on their way to the range. When setting up on the line I noticed a big container of coffee, don't know if it was decaf, but they sure drank a lot of it and they were both Master or High Master shooters.

I think it is pretty obvious that each of us reacts differently to different foods (and other chemical intakes). As such, I don't think there is any hard and fast rule to say you should eat this or that before a match. I eat what I normally eat and when I normally eat. That is what my body expects and I want my body to behave in a normal manor during shooting. If I eat something different because it is thought of as a "super food", it might upset my stomach or cause me to burp up constantly or give me heartburn. None of those are going to contribute to shooting a higher score. So, I keep it simple, I eat what I normally eat and eat when I normally eat and avoid the surprises.

While on the surface, Bullseye shooting does not look all that physical, yet talk to other shooters and many will talk of fatigue. I suspect that eating protein and/or carbohydrates might help to keep the energy level up but I cannot speak from a position of experience on that. You may want to pay attention to what you eat and determine if there are some foods that seem to provide long term energy. You may want to favor those but I would avoid the high sugar foods as they may give you a quick boost, but later in the day when you need the energy, you might come crashing down.