What do you guys recommend in order to try and keep your hands still just before the shot?
My hands are always moving/trembling. Whether it be eating with a fork or shooting a gun. I usually try and take a breath in..then out stopping half way when breathing out.
And i also have noticed when i shoot self defense ammo..it seems much more accurate then the cheap stuff i buy which i know has a effect on it
Have someone toss some snap caps in the magazine randomly, work on breathing, and exercise.
snap caps- Having someone randomly load them in to your mags with regular cartridges will help. You get your stance, you get your grip, you press out and acquire your front sight against the target, your finger moves on to the trigger, you breathe in and then out all the way, you start pressing back on the trigger with the center of your finger pad to stage the trigger then slowly apply consistent force straight back annnnnd.....*click*. That *click* is pretty damned useful for discovering what you're doing with the gun as the sear releases the striker. You'll see of you're pushin, pulling, flinching or squeezing the gun by watching where the front sight goes.
The other thing it does is start to desensitize you to the recoil and rapport of the shot. When you practice enough like this, you'll begin to follow-through better with your trigger press and won't bounce your finger off the trigger as much as well. That'll also help with your shakes if you break your shot and then consciously let the trigger out just enough to reset it. It'll limit waste movement and reduce how much negative influence you have over the gun.
Breathing- Watch anyone that has to make precise and repeatable movements anywhere in the physical world...before they do them they'll often have a ritual involving breathing to put their body in a consistent place. In shooting, it goes even further than psychological, being that breathing effects your whole body. Before you press out, while you're in a high-ready/high-compressed position, oxygenate your blood by breathing all the way in and all the way out a couple times. The partial pressure of O2 in your lungs will increase and it'll flush out the CO2.
That tactical breathing will slow your heart rate and better supply your muscles and ETS energy system with O2. From there, you can press out and take a deep breath in and then out. At the bottom of that tidal cycle is a respiratory pause, where you have a handful of seconds of useful time after fully exhaling to do consistent work.
Of course, if you're doing more run/gun stuff your breathing will be different. You won't have time to fully exhale and may be running your heart rate up there high as you're negotiating obstacles/stress/physical challenges. In these kinds of situations just forcing a respiratory pause mid-tital cycle can be an effective way of managing the ups and downs of breathing while shooting.
Exercising- You're holding a lb of metal at near full extension away from your body for an extended period of time. Take a full gallon of milk and hold it straight out as long as you can...then watch what happens as your muscles fatigue....they start shaking. The better you condition your muscles, the more resistant they become to that fatigue.
I know a lot of people that work on grip-strength with a variety of squeezy-things of all shapes and sizes. It'll help you hold and press the trigger under control over and over again without your muscles fatiguing. They'll also often hang some weights from their trigger guard and just hold it out at full extension in their shooting position. They just work to condition their muscles for extended periods of time.
Also, hit the gym and work on things for your anterior delts, your core, and your arms. One of those better workouts would be to tie a rope to a 10 lb weight or so and tie the other end through a section of broomstick or something similar. Hold it straight out in front of you and use your forearms to turn the dowel and wind the rope around it to lift the weight. Wind the weight up ad down over and over to condition your muscles.
some tricks for shaking hands-
others have mentioned reducing caffeine intake. That's just good all around advice in general. It'll help you sleep better and it'll reduce your chances of having migraines. It'll also be getting rid of a stimulant and source of shakes.
when hands get shaky, calm them down by pressing them together hard and doing some pnf stretching with them against each other.
Rest up. There's no sense in practicing incorrectly. Practice makes permanent. If you start getting fatigued and shaky at the range, just set the gun down, shake your hands out a bit and start again when you feel better. I often keep my handgun in at a high compressed ready, push out for a couple shots, and then come back to limit fatigue and give myself a break. It makes for better practice.
edit:
I forgot to mention that you can reduce fatigue by shooting in your natural point of aim instead of trying to force a shooting position. If you get in a stance, close your eyes, and bring your gun up naturally in front of you...not aiming at anything, you'll notice the gun settles in naturally to the same rough spot every time. At a static range you can use that to your advantage by moving your feet until your natural point of aim lines up with the target. It'll cause your body to have to work less and it'll lead to more solid fundamentals when you get to more advanced shooting and recoil management.
