The first shot counts the most: Tactical breathing as an intervention to increase marksmanship accuracy in student officers

ABSTRACT

In this study, we investigated the effect of tactical breathing (breath-based stress management) on marksmanship performance in a randomized between-subjects design. The total of n = 100 participants (18% female) were all student soldiers and randomly assigned to the intervention group (tactical breathing) or the control group. In the German Armed Forces shooting simulator, participants shot ten rounds at ten meters with the P8 (Heckler and Koch). In addition, the effect of neuroticism, fear of failure, and resilience on shooting performance and the interaction of those traits with the experimental condition were examined. Overall, the total hit score showed a strong ceiling effect, so the more difficult initial hit was primarily used as a performance criterion. None of the personality traits significantly affected the initial hit, and there were no interactions between the experimental condition and the personality traits. However, there was a significant difference in initial hit between the control and experimental group, as the tactical breathing group shot an average of 1.9 points better, t(98) = 8.489, p < .001, d = 1.698. Considering the initial shot, which was more difficult due to the uncocked trigger, tactical breathing proved to be an effective method for increasing marksmanship performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Tactical breathing
• marksmanship performance
• neuroticism
• fear of failure
• resilience

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badge for Open Data. The data are openly accessible at https://osf.io/5z8da/.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in “Tactical Breathing as an Intervention to Increase Marksmanship Accuracy” at https://osf.io/5z8da/, reference number https://osf.io/5z8da/?view_only=1b510d98c3474d7ab9348f8d557eccca.