The Pentathlon Papers – Optimal Shooting Cadence

Something rare: a nice, new scientific paper in Modern Pentathlon and freely available as well. What is it about?

Key Question: What is the quantitative accuracy versus speed trade off in the Laser-Run, i.e. what is the optimal shooting cadence?

First comment: you can ask important research question in sports science and psychology (accuracy-speed trade off) even with the (somewhat marginal) Modern Pentathlon as a subject

Method: Top athletes and beginners shooting to a metronome with a set cadence (between 50 and 14 BPM) and measuring resulting accuracy as distance from bulls eye. No running

Results:   Steep drop-off in accuracy below around 1.8 sec/shot and not much improvement for longer than 2 sec/shot. Right shifted (longer time) with less total accuracy (distance from center) for beginners but shape of the trade-off curve the same

Implications for the Practicing Coach/Athlete: Individual optimal cadence for each athlete (shortest time at stand) but don’t shoot too fast. Everything is trainable but which comes first: training for speed or accuracy?