How to Improve Your Shooting with a Ladder

Piercing pain shot through me. The clock was ticking, and I was down on one knee, searching for a solid connection with my rifle. But all I could feel was the stabbing pain in my knee. My brain was spinning crazy thoughts: “Will I be able to get back up? Is this position good enough to shoot from? I hope my lower back pain doesn’t start next.”

The plan was to spend a fun day at the range ringing steel, but pain can bring the fun to a grinding halt. You must adapt to many challenging shooting positions when you leave the benchrest behind and decide to shoot PRS or NRL. You’d better be ready, or your body will push back.

Maybe you can’t overcome every injury or ailment, but devoting time to a fitness routine is a game-changer for precision shooting. As a SWAT sniper friend recently said, “As you increase your fitness regime and subject your body to more stress, when it comes time to perform mentally and physically, the easier shooting becomes.”

How do you get started? I will give you one dry-fire drill you can use as a self-assessment tool. This ladder drill is one of the easiest ways to practice shooting in a variety of positions. It can be done in your living room or basement with an unloaded rifle; check and double-check that chamber and magazine are empty, and don’t have any ammunition in the room. Simply set up a folding ladder and run dry-fire drills off each ladder rung, from top to bottom and back again.

Body Awareness

The point of the ladder drill is to build body awareness. As you grow conscious of your movement, you’ll learn to assess your positioning, breathing and stability. You’ll know what’s physically tight and what needs to be strengthened.

The first time you do this, I recommend running the ladder drill without warm-up stretches or physical activity. That way you’ll get an honest assessment of how your body is moving and feeling. Then, as you’ll see, it’s easy to build on this assessment.

Let’s take the ladders one at a time. I’m going to mention various exercises and stretches, and since space doesn’t permit going into the details, just do an internet search to find how to do them.

On ladder Step 4, you’re basically standing up, but instead of ramrod straight you’re leaning over. This can create lower back pain, and that pain can result from both a lack of core strength and poor flexibility.

All Positions

Upper-body pulling movements like dumbbell rows and ab/core stability exercises like the plank or floor hip thrusts will address the former. The yoga pigeon pose—which you’ll see is one of your base stretches for many of these steps—helps with the latter.

The key to ladder Step 3 is getting up and down from kneeling. Lunges, hip hinges and ab/core stability exercises like plank, and single-side farmer walks (also known as suitcase carries) cover the strength bases here. Ankle stretches and the pigeon pose will help you achieve sufficient flexibility.

On ladder Step 2, you’re going to be sitting back on your leg, which can present both strength and flexibility challenges. And not only do you have to be able to get into this position smoothly and quickly, you have to get back out of it as well.

Lunges with your knee touching the floor in the down position and the same core-stability movements mentioned previously are important.  I strongly advise incorporating some upper-body pulling movements as well, like cable rows, dumbbell rows, or for a more advanced movement, try birddog rows.

Stretching is Important

You’ll want to do ankle stretches, half-kneeling hip flexor stretches, and the good ol’ pigeon pose to help achieve this position more easily.

Ladder Step 1 can present pain in the neck and lower back, and you may find you have an inability to hold the position comfortably. To address the strength aspect, upper body pressing and pulling movements, plus our old friend the lunge and various ab/core stability exercises will help.

Child’s pose and a floor chest stretch will improve your ability to shoot from this position more easily and comfortably.

Last, get off the ladder and check out your prone position. Here you’re holding up your head for a long time and your arms are extended. To improve strength, work on upper body pressing and pulling movements, as well as lunges, hinges and squats. For prone shooting it’s imperative to spend time strengthening everything because you need to get up and down off the ground, as well as arch your head up to see and support the gun while working the bolt and dialing the scope.  For increased flexibility, the yoga child’s pose as well as neck rolls are both good.

Top to Bottom

Your sequence should always be to test your movement first by running the ladder from top to bottom. Then, elevate your heart rate with a jog. Next is your strength movement, followed by dry fire, and finish with a stretch. Then repeat.

For example, let’s say everything felt good until Step 3. You didn’t have the strength to lower yourself down into a kneeling position, and you struggled to get back up.

To work on this, start with a 30- to 60-second jog in place—or a treadmill if you have one—followed by 10 body-weight squats, then 10 step-back lunges per leg.

Now, take a knee, set up, build a connection with your rifle, take two big breaths, slow the reticle and press the trigger. Run the bolt and dry-fire three more times. Then stand up from the position and stretch your hips with a half-kneeling quad stretch and your glutes with a pigeon stretch. Repeat this whole sequence three times.

Things to Evaluate

What if you struggled shooting prone? Maybe your neck was tight, your shoulders ached, and you struggled to get on the floor. I’d suggest running the same sequence, but this time, your strength movements should be squats and push-ups—and pull-ups if you can. After dry-firing, stretch with child’s pose and a floor chest stretch.

Depending on how many of the steps give you a problem and depending on how you feel that day, the ladder drill should take only 15 to 20 minutes. If you do it two to three times a week, I guarantee you’ll see improvements.

There’s nothing better than punching holes in targets and ringing steel. But for more fun and to sharpen your competitive edge, include strength training, flexibility work and cardio. You’ll finish the match feeling great—no sore back, achy knees or stiff neck—and enjoy shooting a lot more.

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