Advise please, How do I get my bow elbow out.

[Lawrence Croeser]

After reading with great interest TA, I have become aware of some major flaws in my form.

The first problem I would like to rectify, is to get my bow elbow pointing parallel to the ground and not towards the ground.

I manage to get it slightly correct by rotating my elbow while I draw.

Will building ones grip help, I have a short DL and small hands. I do get my hand position correct (on the bow).

Any suggestions.


Many thanks

[Progen]

Taking note of the position of your bowarm's deltoid helps a lot. If your bowarm's deltoid is facing upwards nicely during the draw, the entire arm will rotate nicely to have the elbow facing outwards. If that doesn't work, do the zombie exercise. Stand relaxed with both arms held as if you're Superman, ie. outwards and parallel to the ground. Palms downwards. Slowly swing your arms out to the side to form a T. Look at the elbows of boths arms. Aren't they facing outwards nicely now? :wink: If they're not, check that your palms are still facing downwards. Then pay attention to the position of the shoulder with relation to the arms. Remember that and you won't go wrong.

Once you get the elbows facing outwards nicely, when you're bored, this is what you can do. Hold out your bowarm as if you're holding a bow, and push towards an imaginary target. That'd give your muscles a little workout too. The wrist should be at the same angle as if you were actually holding a bow.

[c3]

I have found this to be one of the most difficult things in the modern technique to accomplish. I've also found that you can hurt your self attempting to rotate the humerous bone in the bow shoulder very easily when at full draw, even with very light poundages.

Here's an exercise to try that will tell you if this is going to be just difficult or extremely difficult to achieve :)

Without drawing your bow hold it up like you are aiming and see if you can rotate your elbow into the correct position. I found this to be nearly impossible at first. If you can't do it with just the weight of the bow, try it with something lighter until you can do it correctly. For me a 1/2 gallon of milk was about the perfect weight for multiple sets :)

Simulating shots with a stretch band like a Theraband and what ever weight you can handle at first helps a ton in developeing the flexibility and strength in the right muscles to control your shoulder like this.

I can do a few with the stretch band and a 10 lbs dumbbell now, but it's still very difficult.

After 25 years of shooting a compound with the elbow facing down at the ground, I found the muscles and shoulder joint just didn't like to be manipulated like one of those teenage koreans at first :)

Cheers,
Pete

[Sandy Hancock]

Grip the edge of a door like you would a bow, with a nice 45 degree angle down the knuckles. Rotate your elbow without moving your "bow hand". You'll be amazed how much movement is possible. Note what is happening at the shoulder while you're doing this.
Practice it until it feels natural.
Then try it with a theraband until it feels natural.
Then try it with a bow.

[Keith Langmead]

When you're holding the bow down at your side before raising the bow and drawing it, start with your bow arm bent rather than straight, such that your elbow is pointing behind you. It doesn't need to be much of a bend, but to start with it's probably easier to exagerate it, and then reduce the amount of bend when you're happy with it. Keep the arm bent as you raise the bow, which will keep your elbow in the correct direction, and then extend the bow arm until it is straight. Once you've become used to doing it you'll probably find that your arm naturally goes into the correct position without needing to think about keeping it bent at the beginning.

Don't know if it works for everyone, but it fixed it for me, and it worked for one of my students just this last weekend.

[Progen]

The potential problem with your solution, Keith, is that there might be a tendency for the archer to develop a bad habit of collapsing the bowarm at the shoulder joint. From all the videos I've watched of the archers at the last Olympics, all of them locked their bowarm nicely in position during the setup before doing any actual drawing. Some rolled their bowarm during the draw but most already had it in position during the setup phase.

[Leighton]

If you don't already have a light stretch band or very light poundage bow, get your hands on one. Then practice your form with the stretch band or bow and work on rotating your elbow out. Eventually your body will get it and remember the form.