Archery Form Fix: How Reducing Tension Improves Stability & Accuracy

Most people assume that adding more tension into the system makes you a more stable archer and a more accurate archer. But ultimately, it comes down to, the archer that shoots the most arrows in the middle is oftentimes the archer that is the most relaxed. I've coached a fair bit of archers on form and technique in the past, and many of them, especially big, strong, burly dudes, will oftentimes use way more tension than is necessary. Oftentimes, they think that adding more tension or recruiting more muscle, meaning firing and stabilizing more with more muscle tension, makes them hold steadier and makes the groups tighter downrange. For whatever reason, it just seems to be more common amongst strong guys, dudes that lift and things like that, that think, oh, I gotta muscle my way through this in order to shoot tight groups or in order to hold the bow steady. The bow doesn't weigh that much. There's not a tremendous amount of weight on the bow itself. It's actually fairly light mass weight-wise. You can make it very heavy, and same thing goes for draw weight as well. However, in both cases, both heavy draw weight and heavy mass weight, the least amount of tension within the system is oftentimes the best. You don't have to Arnold Schwarzenegger it and sit there and pose like Mr. Olympia trying to hold the bow still. When you relax and you have less tension, you'll have less muscle fatigue and overall less central nervous system tension and firing, and you'll actually hold steadier and shoot tighter groups. So really, it's just the name of the game is just kind of relax as much as possible. This isn't a very heavy bow. However, I'm not doing much in the way of actual tension or firing or stability or anything. I'm actually doing very, very little, especially above the sternum. When I'm shooting my bow and I'm doing a good job with managing my tension, I'm actually doing basically nothing from the sternum up. Nothing other than what is required. Basically, the very bare minimum to actually hold on to the bow, to hook on to the string, to draw the bow back, to anchor, and to keep my draw length. Outside of that, I'm not doing really anything in the way of adding tension, at least not in ways that most people think that I am. I'm not sitting there trying to fire my tricep and lock my arm and like really overall just muscle up and try to add tension to help hold still. It's literally from the sternum up. The less you do, the better. The less tension I have in the system, the less I'm going to shake, and the more steady my sight picture is downrange. So if I do nothing more than just build pressure against the bow itself, I'm going to hold steadier. If I add tension in the system and try to actually fire my triceps, I feel like I'm kind of more steady, feel like I'm a little bit more in control, but in reality, there's not going to be any difference in the actual stability of my sight picture. Oftentimes, the more fired up I am, the more I'm trying to actually lock down and actually add stability into the system or fire muscles, the more jittery my sight picture is. It tends to bounce around and move around a lot and not just kind of slowly, gently, just kind of move around. Things that are very erratic and very fast moving tend to raise the anxiety levels of the archer, of the shooter, because you don't want it to be, you know, kind of waving all over the place and just jumping around. Slower, more gentle, gradual movements is way easier to look at subconsciously, or at least way easier to aim and shoot and execute with confidence and let the subconscious brain take over with the aiming. It's not always big, strong dudes that typically tend to overdo it when it comes to adding muscle tension into the shot. A lot of other people do as well, so it's not exclusively to dudes that lift. It's definitely across the board in all types, compound, recurve, barebow, traditional, you name it. People that overdo tension in the system that is unnecessary do not hold any steadier. Now, how to actually figure out where you should and where you shouldn't have tension is really simple. If you think of your sternum right here, think of that as your dividing line up and down, top half and bottom half. It's not really halves, but it's top and bottom, right? So if I divide from the sternum, from the sternum up, the minimal amount of tension is best. No excess tricep tension, no excess forearm tension, no excess finger tension, neck tension, trap tension, shoulder tension, none of that. Just do the bare minimum. If I can close my hand with a 2 out of 10 effort, why would I squeeze a 6 or a 10 as hard as I possibly could? The same thing applies for anything above the sternum. Now, below the sternum is a different story. Glutes and quads and abs and obliques and all that stuff, you actually do want to fire and engage to help stabilize and actually build a solid foundation from the ground up. Now, most people that overdo it typically tend to still overdo it from the sternum down, even though tension from the sternum down is good to actually stabilize and engage with the ground to build a solid foundation. Still, you don't want to go to an 11 out of 10 tension-wise or intensity-wise. You want to do the minimum. So to maintain my position, to maintain my control and my stability, I'm still shooting for a 2 or 3 out of 10 intensity level. This is a very quick, easy concept to go over, right? And so I can close my hand, right, with a 2 out of 10 intensity. I can also squeeze in a death grip with a fist as hard as I possibly can, but after a few seconds I start to lose dexterity, meaning the feeling of the individual fingers in the hand, because there's no more blood flow going on because I'm squeezing as hard as I can. It's not any more stable, it's just over-fatiguing at this point. I could have done the same level of effort of just closing my hand with a roughly 2 or 3 out of 10. The same kind of thing applies for stability below the sternum. To get the hip tuck, to get the actual stability and engagement of the core and engagement of the glutes, quads, all of that stuff to actually stabilize and grip the ground with my toes, that is still just a 2 to 3 out of 10 intensity level. I'm not trying to go through the moon. So basically it's minimal from the sternum up and 2 or 3 out of 10 from the sternum down. Less is more, and you can definitely shoot more arrows in the middle with way less effort and way less tension. So if you're not happy with your sight picture and you're overall feeling like you're struggling when it comes to shooting archery, consider dialing back the intensity level and actually relaxing a little bit. Try to take tension out of the system, especially unnecessary tension. There's no requirement to actually engage and stabilize the entire time, only when you're at full draw. So maybe even between arrows, shake things out, take a moment, relax, start over from zero with a little bit less tension, and I bet you'll shoot tighter groups, especially by the end of the day. If you're interested in working with me on technique and form and all sorts of other things, I do have a couple of camps coming up here in Florida. You can head to my website, jakeominski.com. I'll have links down in the description below for that information on the camps themselves so you can check them out. And I'm not offering personal lessons anymore, one-on-one lessons. The only way that you're able to get booked with me with coaching is going to be through these group sessions or these camps. Space is limited in those camps, so be sure to sign up early. And if you're interested in learning more about the technique that I use, I'm going to have a book that I recommend down in the description below as well. It's called Total Archery. It's written by my old teammate of mine, Tyler Benner, as well as my coach, Kisik Lee. And it's definitely a great resource, a great manual to read and check out in case you're interested in learning more about archery technique. I hope this video helped, and if you find somebody that's struggling at the archery range and they're just not able to hold steady, mention to them, hey, try taking a little bit of tension out of the system. No matter how hard you try, you're not going to hold any steadier. Just take some tension out of the system, relax, and let the subconscious aiming take over.