How To DRAW A BOW - Save your shoulders!

Hello, everyone. Thanks for coming outside with me today. Today, I would like to talk about a proper way or some proper ways to draw your bow to ensure that you are comfortable, you are consistent, and you're enjoying the sport as much as possible. Now, we're not gonna dive into the stance, like how your feet and hips are today. I just wanna talk about the actual physical action of drawing the bow. Now, I'm going to be demonstrating this today with a handheld-style release, a hinge-style release, but the same thing applies whether you're shooting a thumb button or a wrist strap-type release. So first things first, let's actually get the human anatomy aspect out of the way, remembering that we're working with muscle groups here. We're not specifically trying to wrench it back with one muscle. We're trying to use many to get the bow back efficiently, effectively, and without pain and injury as possible. That, of course, first means that you must be shooting a poundage that is respectable for you, and if that means you're starting out at 30, 40 pounds, so be it. Don't worry about shooting 50, 60, 70, 80 pounds right off the bat. Build yourself up. Remember, you are exercising, and particularly if you're new to the sport, remember, these muscles here that are in your back, unless you work out a lot, even if you do work out a lot, are very specific. This is a very unique thing that you're doing. It might look a lot like an upright row, you know, when you bend over the table and you're lifting a dumbbell, but remember, this is an asymmetrical action here. You're not activating this on the left side if you're a right-handed archer. The opposite would be true for a left-handed archer. You're not activating this left side nearly as much as you're activating the right, and of course, this is a very unique issue that you're experiencing with your elbow. You're not used to drawing a heavy weight across your body using these back muscles, so start off with the lower poundage as necessary, and then build yourself up from there. For example, I'm shooting 60 pounds here, and I've been shooting for 16, almost 17 years now, and 60 pounds at a 30 1⁄2-inch draw is super comfortable for me, so I'm gonna start off by getting into my stance here, and I'm gonna draw the bow the right way, and then I'm gonna draw it the wrong way, and you'll be able to easily see the difference. All right, so let me try to draw it a wrong way, which I know is gonna be uncomfortable and very unnatural for me in particular. Oh yeah, that doesn't feel right at all. All right, so let's talk about the two differences here and why one is definitely worse off than the other. So one of the first mistakes I see with people drawing their bow is they think they have to draw the bow to their body, which is not a natural thing. You're trying to draw it past your body, which means you want your elbow to be further away from your body, up a little bit higher than your shoulder, and you wanna draw this across your face. You don't wanna draw it into your body. Remember, if you do this motion, even without the bow being drawn, you can feel all of the muscles in your shoulder and in your back bunch up. Your arm doesn't have a whole lot of range of motion like this. You can kinda get back there, but it's not that great. You put your elbow up, though, and you have all this range of motion, and that's exactly what you want. So if I draw the bow poorly again, and I try to draw to my body, into my chest, it's very strained. And also, I'm now stuck into my chest, and now I have to work my body to get it the rest of the way. I don't want my actual body to become a physical roadblock for my draw cycle. I wanna be drawing past my body. Secondly, when I actually get into my body like that, I'm no longer activating my shoulder muscles here in the back. When I lose that range of motion, my shoulder muscles eventually bind up. They can't move any further. Whereas if my elbow is up and I'm able to pull through, I'm able to continue to use my back muscles, which are much stronger than this motion right here, just using this muscle here off my shoulder. These back muscles are much stronger, and I'm able to draw the bow a lot easier. So let's draw the bow correctly again. So you'll notice my elbow's not gonna be clean up here. You know, you'll see some target guys start way up here, and they'll draw their elbow up. And there's nothing wrong with that. Although for a hunting situation, you wanna try to eliminate as much motion as possible. And I like to shoot longer axle-to-axle bows, even when I'm in a saddle or a tree stand. And so I like to try to keep the bow as parallel to the ground as possible. I'll just keep my elbow up higher to allow that freer range of motion. So my hand for my bow hand is about eyeball level. My elbow is clearly above my head, and I can simply draw the bow back straight. And execute the shot. Now, executing a shot by drawing a bow poorly or in an inefficient way, it actually causes a lot of extra movement. Let me demonstrate. So if I pull into my chest here, now the bow is clear down here. It's way out of the way. Now I have to bring it up and then anchor. It's not very natural. I'd much rather start with my release hand much closer to my face. This also allows me to hold. In the event, because we've all been there for all bow hunters, we've all been there where we've drawn back and a deer pegs us. We're up in the tree, 15, 20 feet, and the deer sees us moving. If I draw back correctly, and let's say I'm stuck here and the deer has me pegged, I can hold this for a very long time, even with a lower let off bow. Because I have all of my muscles now activated in my shoulder, and they can hold this for a very long time. If I'm stuck down in with my bow down across my chest like that, and I'm pinned that way, I'm gonna tire a lot faster. I'm gonna have to let down, and I'm gonna ultimately probably lose that shot on that animal. So let's actually see that in action with a poor draw. I come back and I draw into my chest. Now I'm stuck here, and my bow arm is locked, which means I can't move it very easily. My shoulder is completely locked. I'm very uncomfortable right here. I can feel all the tension in my shoulder muscle. I can feel it all coming down into my lats on the side, and it feels like the bow wants to jump forward on me, which I definitely don't want it to do. So I've only drawn the bow back maybe half a dozen times in that poor form. I can already feel all the tension and all the pain right here in towards my rotator cuff, right here in the outside of my arm. I definitely don't want that. I've been shooting a bow for 16, almost 17 years. I never experienced that pain anymore. I can shoot hundreds of arrows in a day and never feel that type of fatigue and that type of muscle and tendon strain. If I draw up on the upside, and you'll see how much easier that is. I mean, I can pull back 60 pounds. So much smoother and so much more efficiently by keeping my elbow a little bit higher and able to pull my shoulder back and follow through with the shot. So what are some drills you can do? If you find yourself experiencing that shoulder pain, and it's not from drawing a higher poundage, it's not from having a draw link that's too long. Because again, if your draw link's too long, now you're going to have to be overextending yourself. And in particular, if you're drawing into your chest, you're never going to actually get the full draw. You're going to have to lean back and pull it across your chest, which is again, something you don't want. So what are some drills you can do if your bow is set right to the proper draw link and proper poundage, but you're still getting that shoulder pain from dropping your elbow? Some tips and tricks that I've used in the past is by taking a tennis ball and actually literally taping it to my T-shirt in my armpit. If I feel myself touching that tennis ball that's duct taped into my armpit, I know I'm dropping my arm and it's causing that rub. If I keep my elbow up, at least above my shoulder height, I don't make that contact and I know I'm executing a clean release and a clean draw. Some other strength building exercises, you can do an upright row, bending over the weight bench, but have that dumbbell up with your elbow closer to your head than back here. You don't want to be doing an upright row back here. That's not going to build that strength. Have your elbow up. It's going to feel a little bit weird. It's going to not look right. I recommend doing it at home because if you do it in the gym, you're going to look a little bit different than everybody else. But it'll help build up that shoulder strength back in here behind your shoulder blades, relieve a lot of stress off of your arm in particular, and a lot off your shoulder, and you won't experience that discomfort and that pain. So that's all for this video. If you have any questions about how to draw a bow, how to shoot a bow, how to avoid that pain, how to become more consistent and more accurate, follow the links in the description below. Hit me up on Facebook and Instagram. You can even hit up my email, which is down there as well. And of course, always leave a comment here on YouTube. I'll be able to get outside, enjoy the sport of archery, archery hunting if you so choose. Definitely enjoy God's beautiful creation, and we'll get to see you next time.