Four-time Olympic gold medalist Vincent Hancock is one of only five Americans to win four gold medals in the same event.
Alongside Al Oerter, Carl Lewis, Katy Ledecky and Michael Phelps, the 36-year-old stands as one of the greatest Olympians the USA has ever produced.
Now the coach of Qatar's Olympic Skeet Shooting Team, Hancock has operated at the elite level of the sport since winning his first Olympic gold at Beijing 2008.
In an exclusive interview with Hook & Barrel Magazine, he reveals the eight exercises that underpin his remarkable success—and how you can leverage them to become a better shooter yourself.
Vincent Hancock: Olympic Skeet Shooting Success Begins in the Gym
For years, even Vincent Hancock didn’t think he needed strength training, prioritizing time on the range over time in the gym.
“I think a lot of people look at (shooting) and say, ‘Oh, you’re not actively running, you’re not having to do a lot of endurance, or lift heavy weights,’” Hancock explains.
“I didn’t understand anything about what it really meant to work on strength and conditioning until I got hurt in 2018. And because there was so much pain in my back, I knew I had to do something.”
He began training with performance coach and movement specialist Matt Zanis, working on functional fitness and pain relief.
As Hancock’s conditioning program progressed, he noticed his scores started going up, too.
“I realized this was a vital, crucial part of this sport that’s been massively overlooked,” he said.
Training for shooting, Hancock says, is inherently different from training for other sports, since it involves moving smoothly while maintaining control, activating stabilizer muscles alongside quick-twitch fibers.
“You have a component of quick twitch in your reaction time,” explains Vincent.
“But you need to be able to handle this gun weight, or shift the weight easily from one direction to another on targets that are traveling 60 or 70 miles per hour.”
Shooting strength, the Olympian explains, runs from your feet to the top of your core.
“The top of my core is what’s allowing me to take recoil, allowing me to move and shift all this weight," Vincent said.
“But I’m not going to just move the gun with my arms. You’re actually going to turn with your front knee. That’s what keeps the body in line. So, the gun fit is going to stay the same. The head fit on the gun is going to stay the same, and your shoulders and hips and knees are going to stay all in alignment. And that type of motion can only come from the legs.”
Elite Skeet Shooting Requires Leg Training and Cardio
Shooting requires strong stabilizers, the muscles in your legs that keep you balanced. Hancock starts his workouts by walking on a standard gym rope in his bare feet, honing balance and stabilization before anything else.
“Most of my workouts are done with no shoes on, no socks, just bare feet so I can feel the ground, feel that weight shift,” said Hancock.
“You get a lot of those sensory receptors from the bottom of the feet, saying, ‘Okay, this is where your feet are at. This is what your toes are doing. This is how the weight is shifting.’”
Cardio is important, too, helping shooters maintain focus when their heart rate accelerates. During the skeet shooting final at the Paris Olympics, for example, Hancock’s heart rate ranged from 130 to 140 beats per minute, creeping into the 170s and peaking at 180.
“There is an endurance piece to this,” Vincent stresses. “If you can’t manage your heart rate, if you can’t manage the weight of a gun, if you can’t manage the heat, if you can’t manage all these things, then don’t think about being an athlete.”
Cardio for shooters doesn’t mean running long distances, either. Because of his injuries, Hancock is unable to run for more than about three or four minutes these days. Consequently, he has shifted to high-intensity interval training—or HIIT—to ramp up his heart rate like it is during competition.
“I get into a flow state when I’m in that 130 to 140 range. That’s my happy place,” he explained. “If I can have a 130, 140 heart rate, I can go all day long. And my focus is good.”
READ MORE: Beretta Celebrates Near-Perfect Olympic Success
Vincent Hancock on Shooter's Mindset: Think Like an Athlete
Ultimately, Vincent Hancock believes training to be a better shooter comes down to mindset, and if you think of yourself as an athlete and not just a guy out there shooting a shotgun, you’ll find success.
“Even if you don’t feel like you’re an athlete, it doesn’t matter,” said Hancock. “Work on becoming a better athlete. And that mindset will help you, whether it’s business, life or relationships, because it makes you want to work towards something.
“You have these positive interactions with yourself each time you do that, so you have a better outlook on life, and it makes you a better person.”
Vincent Hancock’s Ultimate Skeet Shooting Workout
We joined Vincent Hancock in his home garage, and he ran us through the workout that he gives his shooters with the Qatari national team.
Try the warm-ups and group 1, 2 and 3 exercises below 2 to 3 times a week for a couple of months, and see how both your scores and your all-round fitness improve.
Warm-up (Done as Super Set, repeated x 3)
1. Quadruped Elevated Hip Stretch (5 each)
Get on all fours on a mat, and place a block under one knee. Raise the other knee off the ground so it’s at the same level, then rotate that hip down until the knee touches the ground, raising it back up by rotating your hip the other way.
- Soleus Slouch (5 each side)
Stand with your feet together. Bend your knees, then slowly move your weight forward over your feet, without shifting your hips back. Lift your heels slightly off the ground, then move one foot slightly back and behind you. Keeping your heels lifted, roll your upper body down towards your feet, attempting to touch your toes. Roll back up slowly.
- Three-way Ankle (3 reaches in each direction with each leg)
Stand on one leg with a slight bend in the knee. Reach your raised leg slightly out in front of you, touching your toes to the ground while keeping the leg straight. Then, move it out to the side, touching your toes to the ground. Then move the raised leg behind you and back, like you’re about to do a curtsy lunge, tapping the ground with your toes.
Group 1 Exercises (Done as Super Set, repeated x3)
- Side Lying Scap Punches (10 punches each arm)
Lay on your side, grasping the top of a light dumbbell with your top hand. Moving only your shoulder, move the weight forward a few inches, then back to resting position.
- Rocket Stance Squats (10-12 reps unweighted, 6-8 with weight)
Stand in a staggered stance, with your forward foot on a weight plate. Rotate your upper body forward so your shoulders are square. Squat down slowly and stand back up.
- Wall Hinges (8-10 reps each leg non-weighted, 5-6 with weight)
Stand perpendicular to a wall, with your shoulder on the wall. Raise your leg closest to the wall to a 90-degree bend. Lean forward until your body is parallel to the ground, keeping your leg bent behind you. Raise back to standing, then reach the arm closest to the wall out in front of you. In a large semicircle, trace the wall until your arm is completely behind you, then trace the same semicircle back.
Group 2 Exercises (Done as Super Set, repeated x3)
- Shoulder Focused Body Line Drill (3-5 isometric holds, 10 seconds each)
Get into a forearm plank with a foam roller just above your knees. Place two kettlebells between your hands, one on each side. Press into the kettlebells and push yourself back on the foam roller until your head is in line with your elbows. Hold ten seconds and repeat.
- Side Pillar Reach Under (8 each side)
Get into a side plank on your forearm. Reach your other hand straight above your shoulders, then rotate and reach under your body until your arm reaches behind you.
- Hamstring Iso Bridge (1 max hold per leg)
Laying on your back, bring your feet in towards you and put both feet on a foam roller. Raise your hips up off the ground. Extend one leg straight, balancing your weight on your remaining leg.
Group 3 Exercises (Done as Super Set, repeated x3)
- Zercher Squats (5-8 reps)
With your elbows at your sides, extend your forearms and cradle a squat bar in the crease of your forearms. Lower your body down until your thighs are parallel to the ground, and raise back up.
- Suitcase Deadlifts (5-8 reps each side)
Stand next to a squat bar and grab it in the middle with the hand closest to the bar. Hinge forward with your chest, then raise your chest up using your hamstrings until standing. Bring the weight back down and repeat.
