“Tech neck” is ruining your shooting. Have you heard of tech neck? If not, it’s that permanent forward lean with shrugged shoulders. Imagine a teenager looking at their phone, and you get the image.
So how does that equate to your pistol shooting? When you grip your handgun, do you create tension simply by squeezing it to death? Or do you roll your hands up, shrug your shoulders, flair your elbows out and squeeze the gun up high close to the slide? If you’re one of those who roll your hands up and create pressure up high, then you’re using a trap to create pressure. Typically, this will put you bullseye accurate on your first shot, and your second one will be a Charlie or Delta. Because you’re using smaller muscles, you have less recoil control, higher fatigue and weaker grip.
Most top-level USPSA shooters and current military and federal-level law enforcement agency instructors now teach shooters to roll their hands down and forward as if they’re torquing the gun into the target. You’ll pull the shoulders down slightly, spread the chest open with your lats and keep the elbows slightly bent to absorb recoil. This will give you a taller shooting posture as well. One of the benefits of this technique is that you’re using bigger muscles to lock the upper body in position and stabilize the pistol. You’ll also get better grip pressure, because you’ll have more of your palm on the pistol grip. You’ll have less fatigue since you’re not using the smaller muscles. I know this to be true because my Mantis scores and accuracy have significantly improved when I use this technique.
If you’ve read any of my articles, you already know I believe every sport can be improved with strength training, including our sport of competitive shooting. Several shooters have asked me how to improve their grip strength, but that’s just the icing on the cake. If you really want to significantly improve your shooting, you need to hit the bigger muscles first, then go after the smaller stuff, like grip. If you agree rolling your hands down and pulling the shoulders down will improve your shooting skills, then we can easily improve your shooting by spending more time in the gym with a few simple exercises: rows, pulldowns, pull-a-parts and then finally some grip work at the end. This will help you naturally create a solid anatomical structure to control recoil and stabilize the gun.
There are a couple of things to remember when doing these gym exercises. First and foremost, keep your shoulders down. In other words, as you row the dumbbell, you should feel like you’re pulling your shoulder away from your ear, toward your hip, and driving your chest out. This is true for all upper-body pulling movements. Not only will this help strengthen your lats, it will also help stabilize your shoulders and give you a taller chest-up posture.
Banded pull-a-parts are an outstanding rehab movement, as well as great for learning how to pull your shoulders back. Here’s another outstanding benefit of upper-body pulling exercises—you’re also improving your grip. Any time you grab something and pull it, you’re working on your grip and forearms. If you want more grip-specific exercise, you can work on crush grip, pinch grip and don’t forget extension (think opening the hand and spreading the fingers apart). Extension work will help prevent elbow issues and tightness.
If we can agree that rolling your hands down and pulling your shoulders down is an effective way to control recoil and improve your shooting, then we should agree that hitting the gym will help your shooting. Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying you need to build a wide back like Mr. Olympia. What I am saying is that strengthening your upper back first and your grip second will have a solid carryover for your shooting. If you’re already hitting the gym, add more pulling exercises and your shoulders will thank you. Give it a shot for the next four weeks and let me know your results.
Article from the July/August 2025 issue of USPSA’s magazine.
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