Man ole man, I was looking for someone else’s thread about form and came across this awful gem of a thread lol Even looking back at these 3 year old videos I see where my form was lacking immediately.
I recently spiraled pretty far out of control with my shooting form. While tuning arrows I found myself over extending my draw length to get better flight out of the arrows. This was obviously counterintuitive as the goal is to tune the arrow to your draw length for the best possible arrow flight. By being inconsistent with my draw I was frustrating the tuning problems further with inconsistent arrow flight. I think I let the frustrations get the best of me. I was shooting my heavier bow 55# way too many times a day, sometimes hundreds of shots on the weekend, over extending my form, drawing primarily with my shoulder, and giving myself the worse case of target panic and shoulder/collar bone aches I’ve ever experienced since picking archery.
With my shoulder pain getting worse I decided to take a step back and assess my form and draw length. I was googling archery form and shoulder pain when I came across a video done by outdoor with Tom Clum. I had heard the name plenty before and knew he was highly respected but I never watched any of his stuff. Very quickly he made it clear to me that my back tension was next to zero and I was boogering up my shoulder. It was plain as day but I had been missing it. I don’t know at what point I fell so far off the wagon but it was immediately clear what I was doing wrong.
I shot a few shots this afternoon focusing on actually engaging the back tension and the results spoke for themself, no shoulder pain. Some immediate things I noticed was I could hold the weight back significantly longer once I was ‘locked-out’ with my back muscles and I my clean release returned.
So take this as a warning and a reminder that this special thing called back tension is supremely important and without it you could not only be risking your accuracy but also your shoulder health. Don’t be stubborn like me. If something hurts stop and reassess. I was so hyper focused on arrow flight that I abandoned my form. Though unintentional, the consequences were still real. I’m addicted to shooting everyday but I really ought to give my shoulder a couple days to get right.
I’m too young for this non-sense. Happy Shooting!