I've shot a lot of IDPA but it has never produced much adrenaline––at least not what I assume you'd experience in a life-threatening event.

How do you train so that when you do experience an adrenaline rush brought about by a credible threat you don't completely fall apart and negate all the range training that you've done?

Joking answer:



Real answer:
Repetition, stress induction. Adrenaline from competition is the same as adrenaline from combat. No one can fully train for the actual stressors of combat, and until you're there you can't know how you'll preform. Ask any soldier and I'm sure they had a guy in their unit, super hooah and highly trained, that when the bullets started flying they curled up into a ball.

However, adding stress whether through a timer or physical activity is a good way to get your mind body working at a stress level. Repetition gets your body to move while your mind can deal with everything else.

Ok, that makes sense.  When I first started IDPA it was quite a rush which subsided progressively as I gained more and more experience.

You mention physical activity.  So, getting your heart rate up by running(or whatever) before hand increases you ability to deal with the stress?

This, and if I may add, some people are not wired to normalize stress while others do it from the get go.  I have had quite a bit of force on force training (and some real life close calls), and while I have definitely noticed a marked improvement in the manner in which I react, there is always a pucker factor for me.  

I know some people that the first time they were dropped in a high stress, life-or-death situation, they completely froze.  Even after weeks of going through the exercises, they never really improved much (went from completely freezing to just being generally worthless).

If you are wired 'correctly', when you are subjected to a high stress situation, you fallback to your training.  Practice, practice, practice.  Every time you draw your side arm, clear a 'jam' (tap/rack), and get back on target in training, you are more likely to do so during stressful positions.  There are several times where I ended up tap/racking a malfunction and had no idea I did until an instructor commented on it.  

When your muscles and low-brain functions automatically take over some tasks for you, you've done well.  That allows your focus to be where it should be, on the threat.  And keep practicing, even when you think you finally got it.

Yeah. Getting your heart rate and breathing up distracts your mind from the fine motor skills. It can put your body into "emergency mode" in a lot of ways.

I don't know if you saw the video posted in GD with the fat dude "running and gunning" complaining about ammo problems while pointing his rifle as the camera man. The guy is obviously use to a "sedentary lifestyle" and after running 50 feet he stops at a barrier to shoot. When the gun fails to fire he looses any ability to act as a competent human being, much less the "gun-fighter" he envisions himself. Part of that is unfamiliarity, part is lack of physical fitness.

Repetition of firearms manipulation and the added stress of physical activity is a good start to stress inoculation.

I would assume that the confidence brought about by training also factors in.  Would you agree?

Certainly, to an extent. But that goes back to "training till you get it wrong", dealing with confidence vs skills, and not becoming complacent. Confidence in training is good, but ONLY if you're truly pushing your personal limits as you train. It can be a fine line between progressing too fast (over confidence), too slow (complacence), and at the correct rate. People in all 3 camps can be "confident" that confidence and that may not translate into stress inoculation.

I have heard of stress fire drills that help with it some. stuff like hike 4 miles with pack, drop pack sprint 400 yards, draw and engage. stuff like that. or you could just make coffee and use redbull instead of water.

I'll try the redbull and coffee.

Coke and peeps.

Force on Force with Simunitions.  Back when I use to instruct, the first time did FoF for people you would see some real big effects of stress effects on them, but as you did it over and over they did much, much better.

You can get similar effects with Airsoft if you cannot get SESEMS.

Paintball does wonders...

Seriously, go to your nearest paintball field and play a match of airball with tourney guys. You'll feel that adrenaline hitting you when 15 balls a second are flying your way

357mag,

The short answer to your question is that one needs to engage in quality Reality Based Training or "RBT." In quality RBT you will be armed with non-lethal training firearms which shoot non-lethal (but painful) training ammunition. In a quality RBT you will be placed in training scenarios against other living, breathing, very dynamic, and unpredictable human beings who will realistically interact with you in ways that will cause you very real externally induced stress. These are scenarios that appear so real that they will induce the fight or flight reaction out of your Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS).

You and others on this thread make a good point, the type of internal self-induced adrenaline rush experienced in a competition can not compare to an externally adversary induced SNS reaction and adrenalin dump. Nor can strenuous exercise help here, as the strenuous exercise (elevated heart rate) does not compare to an SNS reaction via adrenalin dump.

To get a better understanding of why this is, let’s take a look at some of the parameters involved in a competitive system.

1. Competitive games have rules, which are enforced by referees
2. Your targets are made of paper or steel, and at best bobbing/moving
3. Most competitive shooting is done “on line” or through a prescribed course (shooting boxes, etc.)
4. All the stress in competitive shooting is self-induced by the competitor
5. At the end of  competitive event everyone (winner and loser) has an opportunity to go home, and everyone knows this

The reality of a fight for life is a complete opposite of a competition:

1. Where competitive shooting events have rules enforced by referees - real life has only one rule “Decisively win the fight” which is enforced only by the individual who can win it - not a referee - instant stress and chaos ensue
2. While your target is a paper or steel in the competitive circles - in real life you have real, live, violent, ruthless, dynamic, and unpredictable humans to contend with. Again, stress and chaos ensue
3. In the competitive sports your actions and movements are restricted by rules - in real life, the only things that limit your area of movement are the laws of physics
4. In competitive shooting the stress is self-induced - in real life the stress is placed upon you by a violent human that is either attempting to do you serious bodily harm or kill you… Presto! Instant SNS externally induced adrenalin rush.
5. In the sports shooting events, everyone has an opportunity to walk away from the event a little more experienced in how to win an event and shoot faster and more accurately - in a real life lethal force encounter, only those who are willing to fight ruthlessly and do so immediately and without reservations will live to have the opportunity go home. Again, the threat of death conveys real external caused stress and chaos.
6. While the best shooters in the competitive events even receive accolades and awards - in the real world, the odds are you won’t get anything but a trial

All of these factors come to in play, and we haven't even touched on David Grossman's killing enabling factors, nor Kenneth Murry's task triad. The bottom line is that (as you mentioned in your first post) it is all to easy to give oneself a false sense of security or, as you so adroitly have observed "(so you) don't completely fall apart and negate all the range training that you've done."

The bottom line is that you will fight the way you train.

A skeptic would say that one cannot duplicate the stress of a real gunfight, yet the skeptic would be wrong. The military - through billions of dollars of research and training programs - has proven that proper RBT does work. As such America has produced some of the highest kill ratios in the history of humanity for the individual soldier. The military's experience (most often driven by private training groups) have proven that one can learn to overcome the over-socialization of modern society as well as control the SNS reaction through invaluable "orientation training" via stress inoculation provide by RBT. Thus allowing one to effectively function and shape the events that happen in the most chaotic of situations - life and death struggles. It is because of this type of research that we have seen the widely successful Top Gun and other RBT programs that the Military offers to its best and brightest fighters, in the air, on land, and at sea.

I have written extensively on this topic, and you can contact me directly on this forum or visit this link to read a little bit more on the above topic of RBT.

Kind regards,

- SB

The first time I did paintball I was surprised by how intimidating it was having paintballs whiz past me.  I discovered that cover was my friend.  
I have some markers it might be worthwhile to get a CO2 filler tank.

Thanks––good thought.

Wow.  Thanks SB.

Does Dave Grossman cover killing enabling factors in "On Combat"?  I started it but haven't finished it yet.

It seems  pretty clear that force-on-force is the best direction to go to ramp up my training to a more realistic level.  
I need to look around a bit to find a trainer in my area that does force-on-force.  I'm in Southern New Mexico.

I'd be interested in anything you've written on RBT.

Thanks,

357mag

Excellent post, S_B!

Welcome SB! Very cool website.

You are very welcome sir, my pleasure.

I don't remember whether or not Col. Grossman addresses the killing enabling factors in the book On Combat, but his book On Killing is completely dedicated to the subject. Well worth your time to become familiar with the ideas.

Thank you for the kind words mcnlelsen.

Of course, there is no substitute for the real thing - but I like to sprint up to the firing line sometimes to get the heart pounding a little.

I believe scenario based Force on Force is the best way to induce stress similar to what one might be under during a real gun fight.

Although there is no perfect replicant for the effects of acutal combat, Force on force (not airsoft) and elevated heart rates are the most common methods currently.

Yes, paintball with tourney guys, not rec ballers, because it is way faster of a pace with tourney guys. Shoot or get shot, simple as that. If you want something closer, run 100yds one way, and 100 yds back to your position, reload then shoot. Try to keep your head profile low, and close to your rifle.

- One BIG common problem is: coming out of a bunker in sequence, which allows the enemy to time your planned engagement.

Be safe, gun safety first.

Playing paintball made me not want to get into any gun fight.
By the end of my first day I learned a lot.

This, but CQB paintball. Open field paintball is fun, but doesn't have much applicability besides using cover.

I've been playing paintball at an abandoned building with friends. Its amazing how fast training goes out the window when you hear a bad guy's footsteps within a few feet of you or when you enter a room and see a bad guy pointing a gun at you. I can honestly say my CQB muscle memory has vastly improved under stress. At first it feels extremely natural to move to cover over standing and shooting, or even worse to try and turn and minimize your target area. Both bad habits destroy your ability to make the bad guy die first. I thought I "knew how to clear a room" but as you very well know reading about doing something and doing something are two different animals.

I don't pretend that its anywhere near real firefight adrenaline, but sweating your ass off running into a building, kicking in a door, and assuming a firing position while being shot at has to translate to an extent. If I could do it over again I would have taken a class then tried to do CQB paintball at least once a month. No bad habits that way

And paintball with friends is always super fun.

Training "for" adrenaline is going to be a lot like training for anything.  The best way is by getting exposure on an increasingly stressful scale in situations that closely replicate the stressful event.  FOF scenarios won't help much if your intended stressful event is a public speaking engagement in front of a few hundred people that could have serious career ramifications.

If you want to get better at dealing with stress/adrenaline in the context of fighting, then fight.  Go to a BJJ/MMA gym and train & compete.  Take classes like SouthNarc's ECQC every 6 months or every year.  Stressful/adrenaline charged live fire is tougher with the safety considerations.

As for the tools, it really doesn't matter if it's a SIMS gun, Airsoft, whatever, as long as the participants are honest with themselves and each other and train accordingly.