Get fit for the field - even in your garden

Improve your fitness and your shooting technique will no doubt benefit too, writes Richard Negus, and you don’t need to go to the gym

- Richard Negus

No one likes a whiny dog, or a human being for that matter. In a moment of self-reflection, I realised I had become a member of the bleating fraternity, forever complaining to others about my aches, pains and assorted spasms. I did something about it, returning my sore back and wonky arm to a semblance of functionality, courtesy of repeated trips to a chiropractor. After his ministrations I could bend over once more without shrieking and swing a gun fluidly, albeit in my own habitually jerky version of finesse.

To maintain this current happy state of good health, I turned to Helen Stammers for guidance and all-round fitness advice. Helen has served her country well. Her military career spans three decades, and she is currently officer commanding the Royal Army Medical Corps’ rehabilitation unit at 16th Air Assault Brigade. Out of uniform, Helen is a keen Shot, accomplished stalker and tyro angler — she tells me she is packing a fly rod in her bergen for her upcoming posting to the Falkland Islands.

My belief was, if her physical rehab regime successfully returned members of the red beret fraternity to full active service after injury, then helping an ex-Household Cavalry coffin-dodger like me regain and maintain some sort of fitness must be well within her capabilities.

Helen’s methodology is refreshingly no-nonsense and age-appropriate, or perhaps in my case, old-age appropriate. In her day job she rehabilitates soldiers after injury. These fit men and women are invariably under 40 years of age.

Recovery and fitness