Breathing While Shooting – Quick Tip from a Retired Navy S.E.A.L.

Today I just want to give you a quick tip on breathing while shooting. I think this is so important because the way shooting is taught for the most part is for you to hold your breath. 

In fact, when I was running the sniper course, that’s what I was taught. You don’t want to hold your breath, but you are going to want to shoot during what’s called your natural respiratory pause. 

So you breathe in, then breathe out, and during that natural pause is when you want to break your shot. That’s when you’re taking long shots or you’re taking sniper shots.

Breathing The Wrong Way?

In these quick tips on breathing while shooting, you hear this terrible advice because people breathe the wrong way when they shoot. We are naturally supposed to breathe in and out through our noses. Our bellies are supposed to rise and fall as we breathe. 

If you’re to take a deep breath in right now, go ahead and do it with me. Most of you tend to raise up your shoulders and your chest goes out. 

So when you’re shooting, that is going to affect your shooting platform. Whereas if you’re just doing belly breathing as you should do, it’s much healthier for you, and you get much more oxygen. You’ll be able to shoot better as your belly goes in and out. Unless you’re laying down on your belly. 

When you’re shooting with your pistol, and you’re breathing in through your chest, your shoulders and other muscles move up and down which is going to affect your shooting. 

So you don’t want to do that, you want to belly breathe.

So that is your Quick Tip of the day about breathing while shooting. If you like this post, please share and drop a comment. I really hope this has helped you out and until next time, keep paving your path to perfection.