Are You Drawing Your Bow Correctly? Here's How to Prevent Archery Shoulder Injuries

[Music] all right so so if you've been you've been bow hunting or shooting a bow for a long time or you know people that have you probably are somewhat familiar with with shoulder injuries in archery um it's kind of the classic you know the classic thing you know a long time shooter just can't shoot anymore shoulder gets wrecked dragged off surgery and then got to start shooting a crossbow or something and we don't want that to happen so um you know in in recent years like there's been a lot learned about about what causes those injuries and how to prevent it more importantly so i'm here at rocky mountain specialty gear with tom klum who is uh a usa archery level four instructor um a pretty you know high elite level instructor in a system that's basically designed to prevent shoulder injuries and you know i'd say there could be other injuries but shoulder is going to be the most common injury you're going to see in an archer and so i'm going to have tom kind of break down some of these different types of injuries that you'll see and this applies to both compound and traditional traditional bows you know you'll see certain types of injuries are more prevalent in in traditional bows and some are more prevalent in compounds and you know traditional bozart you know and traditional archery is becoming more and more popular and there's ways you can really screw up your shoulder and a lot of people have over the years by shooting a traditional bow a certain way i want to reluctant to say incorrect because you can there's very accurate ways of shooting that can still just destroy your shoulders so with that i'm going to have tom you know talk about some of these different types of injuries you know your your both shoulder injuries and drawing shoulder injuries we'll try to give you you know we'll give you some background and we'll try to show you examples of things you know things that will and won't hurt your shoulder in ways that hopefully you continue can continue you know bow hunting and shooting shooting bows for a lifetime what i'm going to talk about first is an injury to the draw side shoulder that's where you see most guys i know being an older guy now i know a lot of people that cannot shoot a bow anymore so let me back up a second here and talk about uh a little archery form biggest loss of misses or biggest cause of misses a lot of time is any loss in string tension because loss and string tension is always a variable loss in string tension it caused a lot of problems in archery so typically at any high level of shooting a recur bow in particular a traditional bow is a shot that involves increasing string tension to a follow-through and here's the root of what caused a lot of problems if we do things that are intuitive if we haven't had training at a higher level involved the subject of back tension we're going to pull the bow in a direction that's intuitive if i'm shooting that way i'm going to pull the string that way the problem is is when i pull the string this way first of all i'm using shoulder muscles a weaker muscle group as opposed to back muscles is that there's an end of range of movement in that direction it's about right here so you can all maybe anticipate where i'm going so if we're pulling increasing string tension through a break we're gonna we're gonna increase strength tension to a follow through that will slam to a stop right at that point now this is opposed to what the we call back tension where literally the direction of tension is this way it's behind me and that causes a rotational follow-through that does not cause an impingement and it's a much more powerful shot too so i'm going to press tension behind me and press my shoulder this way i'm going to be pressing this way or this way and what that causes is basically a shot when it breaks when the string breaks through your fingers we get rotation through a follow-through position so you'll see that the follow-through position ends between my ear and my shoulder whereas if i'm driving tension this way i'm gonna slam into an end of range of motion it's between my eye and my ears but boom right here this is the devastating motion to an archer what it does is it causes an impingement between the head of the humerus and something called the acromion process all right this here the representation of the right side shoulder blade and clavicle this is the head of a humerus the head of the upper arm bone this is the glenoid that's where the humerus sits right in into that pocket right there not a lot supporting that joint that's why a lot of this stuff is so important this little bone that sticks out as a chromium process and there's a gap in there between the head of the humerus and this little process is a little bone that sticks out from the scapula so there are tendons running too that your bicep tongue runs through here supraspinatus runs through attaches to the front side the specific impingement from slamming to a stop is this scapula closing this gap and slamming to a stop right here just like this there's tissue in there and the tissue is going to get inflamed and something that your body does to inflammation is that calcium so a lot of times we'll get a bone spur under this area right here and then when you're in causing this impingement still it goes from a sore shoulder to an injured shoulder because these bone spurs will start lacerating one of these tendons that run through there typically supraspinatus is the one that gets hit the most the bicep tendon runs through this slot and goes through this gap too so sometimes we'll even have a saggy bicep because the bicep tendon will get lacerated so those are where that little gap right there is where this injury specifically comes from i'm gonna go ahead and talk about another motion that is detrimental to the rear shoulder again so the other one is if i build a holding position i have a high rear shoulder i may drive a back tension a good direction of tension but what i'm going to get is a high rotation that can cause the same impingement between the head of the humerus and the acromion process that slamming motion can cause so if i have good direction of tension but i shoot from a high shoulder position i'm going to get a high rotation and that can cause some of the same impingement not as devastating as a slam to a stop but still can be very detrimental with a high rotation a shot actually looks like for the rear and this is just from a direction tension behind me but the natural result will be a hand that stays right in line with the arrow watch the hand and an elbow that slashes so if you're seeing shooting with good direction tension and low level shoulders what you'll get on the rear elbow is a slashing elbow with a linear hand we're going to show you first is actually drying the bow correctly and show you how much tyler is using his back to draw the bow even so what you're going to see is you're going to see a big movement the shoulder blade's about right here but as you draw the bow you're going to see a big scapular shoulder blade retraction these muscles here are the big muscle groups that we want to take the load of the boat and we're going to take it off of the strain off of the shoulder we don't want to strain these muscles we're going to put the strain in these big back muscles that's why it's called back tension so we're going to point out is this big scapular movement during draw so he sets it down here boom big movement strong and a follow-through big strong movement big powerful muscles driving the whole thing so we're going to do this time is we're going to have tyler draw the bow basically doing what we call a shoulder pull what he's going to do is not engage his back he's going to point the arrow straight at the target and pull straight away just like 100 of us do before we've been trained differently what you're not going to see is the scapular retraction all that strain is going to come from mostly his shoulder and therefore he's not using these big power powerful muscles in his back he's going to go ahead and shoot the shot we got a lighter bow because actually we don't want to put that strain on tyler's shoulder by shooting incorrectly with that shoulder pull so we grabbed a little 20 pound bow we can finish this shot with you'll see him slam this slam to a stop so we're hardly seeing any movement in the shoulder now we're going to pull this way boom ouch how'd that feel tyler will seem like little tingly with a 20 pound hole yeah yeah so he's got a big powerful shot and when he's driving tension in the wrong direction he slams to the end of that range of motion and then the impingement we showed with those with the head of the humerus and the chromium process slams together we impinge those tissues and wouldn't want to do that too many times no okay so what we're going to do this first time is the incorrect method the intuitive method the one we all used before trained in the back tension so tyler's going to draw this bow straight back and that's going to be the direction of tension when he releases the arrow and you'll see the elbow slam to a stop straight back the aim occurs he applies tension ouch and a little rotation a little bit but that didn't look like it felt good let's try that again it's hard for tyler to do it wrong now he's really well trained because you used to do it all the time yeah that's all that's how it shot yeah direction that way comes to an anchor there's his aim ouch so he's got a short fall through position and that elbow slammed to a stop right there that's what you see it did not rotate through like we want to do it to keep that shoulder safe yeah now we've got tyler's 52 pound hunting bow and now he can shoot that bow without tearing your shoulders up in a correct manner what you'll see is a draw that comes from the outside settles in we showed you that what's going on in the back so we'll show it from this side we'll see the rotation into this holding position he'll pry apply tension in the correct direction behind him and you'll see that shot break the follow through will slash through his hand will stay in a linear fashion will end up between basically his ear and the end of his shoulder so the hand will stay linear the shoulder will slash around goes holding position he settles into his back bam here we have the follow through position between the ear and the end of the shoulder elbow slash through the finished position and it's a nice smooth you never hit a hard wall like right so the head of that humerus and we have that acromion process that just glendale humor rotation rotates through with no impingement so those are that wraps up my demonstration of what it looks like for back tension with the two bad results one slams to a stop with incorrect direction attention one is good direction of tension but a high shoulder to start with okay so let's go to the other side the other side is kind of common with men who work hard women who work hard athletes is that if anything is coming from a down position to an up position we engage these upper trapezius muscles they're lifting muscles so what you see in a lot of archers is they lift the bow up up comes the shoulder right and what we want is that shoulder down and back as opposed to anything that's up or forward so these are both very common things you see you'll see a person rotate into good alignment when they try to align their shoulders their chest and overdrive it up comes this shoulder or simply by lifting the bow up they lift with the upper trap because it's kind of an enhancer at an up position and up comes the shoulder a drop drawing a bow from a low position here like drawing the bow while i'm raising can also drive the shoulder up out of position and so this is really detrimental because what we're doing instead of the humor sitting in the glenoid right like this is that thing is coming up and stretching all this soft tissue here and then we've got a bunch of weight going that way and we further stretch all those tissues and it's it's really a big strain to this front shoulder and a lot of people get away with it for years but i am a guy that shot before i knew better like this it's just part of what i did and to this day this motion here is very difficult for me to do it's a so i've got damage in there i don't even know what it is so it's really critical that we keep those shoulders low and level so even when i raise the ball i'm going to come up here and then i'm going to come into my position see now that front shoulder's down both shoulders are down low and level if i've got a problem with lifting the bow and lifting the shoulder up too there's some things that's just the way you're thinking about it sometimes we'll push that shoulder down here at this position and like use a scooping motion so sometimes it's just technique it's just scoop that arm up and just learn to get in the mirror look in the mirror push that shoulder down scoop it up we've got a low and level shoulder that's what we want sometimes it's a matter of strength or when we lift the bow the stress is going this way or lifting the shoulder up so there is technique where we can engage the muscles that actually depress the shoulder where we put a little twisting motion in there push the bow at the target line and give it a little twist and you'll feel these lat muscles engage those are the ones are sucking that shoulder down and we lift with that rotational tension and then proceed into our shot and finish it so mts provides for technique that literally engages the muscles to to depress the shoulder so a takeaway for both sides both sides of your body your shoulders on both sides is that we want to produce an archery shot from a position where both shoulders are low and level everything we're doing is building that position recurver compound that's the most stable place for your shoulders to be there with back tension uh release that thing is going to rotate through here we're going to have those that that humerus rotate through the glenoid without an impingement we'll show you about a little bit we're not going to stretch these tissues up it's alone level it's an absolutely stable place to be your pin float's going to be reduced from these positions it's more powerful we're not giving up drawing look at the drawing i'm giving up with that high shoulder and it's just a strong position overall even the way we draw the bow can cause a little bit of strain if i close my stance up if my front foot is ahead of my back foot it'll put us in a position where we'll reach really far forward and then there's a long stroke back in here into holding well that's a lot of shoulder stress right here it's a lot of shoulder stress so a lot of times we'll open the stance we'll put that front foot maybe three inches behind the back foot to where we can come more like this and then we have just much more direct we're not reached we're not reached across like that closed stance puts me way up there with a big reach in a long way back i'll open that stance and i'll just take this hand straight up like this and then come right into my positions a compound bow we're we we're going to do our business a little bit different all the way that bows way up in front we got to crack it over to the let off so we there's some vulnerabilities to your shoulders but we got a new one to add vulnerability your clavicles this vulnerability here is caused here again from a high shoulder and then trying to crack this bow over from here and we impinge this clavicle and it can be a ac or sc side you can get really a bunch of pain over here at the sternum side or over here at the end so what we want to do with a compound is we want to when we twist our body we're bracing we're pulling the bow we're bracing the bow we also want to start from a little outside position so i can lead with the shoulder i can get the stress of drawing that bow into my back i'm going to retract my scapula by driving this shoulder back so the draw on a on a recurve is more we more pre-align our shoulders and come right into low the compound we can't do that because all that weight's up in front so we're going to come up here we're going to engage a little rotational tension get that bow stuck down we're going to come up and we're going to coil and lead with the shoulders of the draw at the same time so it looks more like this boom right into your let off so we're going to coil and draw lead with the shoulder so we have some power from separating our hands from the twisting motion that's going to enhance your power and then lead with the shoulder get the stress put in your back and off of your shoulder we're going to have eric draw the bow here in kind of a poor position first anytime the shoulders are high it's going to be a much weaker poorer position and make you more prone to injury got these shoulders up okay so you have eric draw from a much improved position what you're going to see on eric's draw that's great is he leads with the shoulder so you'll see the scatter retraction we'll watch this shoulder blade move about this much probably about four inches of movement from up here to right here now he's using the big strong muscles in his back to draw the bow boom sets it in there let me further caution you a lot of times we've got a wrist strap or at least a caliber type release a lot of guys will come up here and they'll kind of point the arrow straight at the target and the man even if they have some coiling motion they come straight back with that draw all that stress is going to the shoulder so on either kind of recurve or compound we kind of want to draw for a little more outside to inside that arrow point left a little bit that's fine that arrow will come right to target as you draw so we want to get this this drawing hand maybe three inches outside the line of the bow and then lead with the shoulder it's all technique driven so we're going to lead with the shoulders we coil and drown we're leading the shoulder right into the let off okay so for a compound remember that shoulder needs to be engaged down it's a big risk for clavicle impingement when we start with that shoulder high because as we rotate through there in this this high shoulder we're really got a big chance of impinging this clavicle i've seen it's not a common injury but when i see an injury from clavicle impingement on either end of either clavicle these things take forever to heal there's not much blood that gets to that those connections so we're talking like eight months to a year and a half before the soreness comes back and we can shoot again we had corrected a guy that big strong strapping guy bodybuilder and that front shoulder was up when he was starting his draw and then all that pressure that shoulder came forward as he pressing that bow in and just smashed that clavicle together and that guy took took thing near a year and a half to be able to shoot again so really the shoulder positions are extremely important to every part of the shot from the start of the draw right through the finish of the draw right through the finish of the release we did a an immersion click it was a three day shooting clinic one time and a young man showed up and he says you know my shoulder is so sore i'm not going to be shooting i thought about not coming but i thought i'd come to watch and so we got this guy aside like can i uh watch one of your shots see what's going on in your shot you know we hadn't even really started the clinic yet so we watch him shoot and sure enough he's got he's trying to pull through a clicker and he's pulling that way to get through that clicker and cloak makes that shot bam it slams his shot and the poor guy was like oh that just killed me and she's like okay dude i know what your problem is but if you're going to learn let's try a stretch panel give you a proper technique anyway so first of all we started with how he drew the bow we got the stress off the shoulder we got this strain out here about three inches so you can lead with the shoulder take the strain off the shoulder put in these big back muscles so we got to got him to draw the bow properly boom and then we got him into correct direction tension which is this way this way not that way so anyway we start with a stretch band because man this guy's hurting yeah so we get him in we get him to draw the bow with more of his back muscles get the strain off that sore shoulder it's hard to say yeah that's five times right okay anyways we hope we get that guy to lead with the shoulder get that stretch into the back muscles we built a holding position and we got him into correct direction attention behind him and now let's leave a little room in here for a quicker we shortened a clicker i'll put just a touch so he could get through the clicker with rotational attention to a follow-through he's like that did not hurt and you're talking about a guy who's presently like has a he can't sore shoulder can't she is hurting so bad he says i came to watch i can't shoot my bow so we ran him through you know this stretch band a few times got him in the correct direction attention rotating through a follow through set his bow up shorten the clicker a little bit so he could get through the click with this kind of emotion yeah and it's it's it's such a common thing like you see because it's it's it's intuitive it's you know the target's that way you pull the bow back that way that's how i shop for years it's how and these injuries yeah and you know you may see you know you see people that are trained in shooting like a with a rotational draw and you see what the follow-through looks like and you'll see people and i used to like i was one of them you try to mimic that like oh well that's what that follow through works but you're still using the wrong muscles and still subjecting yourself to in you know potential injury i mean i got you know oh better not shoot better take a little break from shooting because my shoulder is getting sore yeah or you know and actually actual joint soreness not just muscle soreness from being out of shape right you know and and one thing i you know i noticed too is if i'm if i'm too far forward drawing the bow i get you know i almost immediately it starts it starts hurting right there and if i do it very much it hurts really bad yeah if i if i if i run my shot using you you know if i'm putting too much torque in a certain way uh you know that that interrupts that smooth um that smooth follow-through you know i i like i hurt my shoulder last summer it was it wasn't bad but i noticed it immediately and i you know i took a day off and then kind of reworked to figure out what i did wrong and then i was fine which brings up a point if something's hurting you need to change something get off of whatever pressure is causing repetitive motion strain and because we don't want to turn it into repetitive motion injury because a lot of people it turns into long-term stuff that basically not be able to even shoot a bow anymore yeah it's true it ends up in a surgery sometimes so and everybody's built different some people it may not affect or you know a lot of people that just shoot really lightweight bows you could see you know you can see an impingement that they have they may be able to do that for years before it it really starts turning age um but some of them you know loss of muscle tone and also that shows up big time yeah but back to that guy we got him on his bow we got him to draw the bow from a better position get the strain into the back and off the shoulder get him to get good direction attention get him his follow-through he shot the whole clinic he shot 400 arrows without a lick of pain yeah it was a testament to technique and you know what nts teaches for injury avoidance yeah and then yeah just some of these basics you know these simple principles like keeping your keeping your shoulders down and and learning what real like what really what using back tension is you know everyone says back tension but a lot of people don't understand what it really is and what it feels like you know they just try to have a shot that looks like what someone with back tension shoots but that's a pretty shot it is it's a very good you know what it it looks cool you see these guys come in here it's such smooth movement they settle in here you see this beautiful falzer and it looks cool it does and we want to look yeah and we we do and then you know you see a cl you're trying to clean up your release all these things like i could before i learned how to do it i thought i was shooting with back tension you know until he educated me otherwise about three years ago brutally so but um you know i i had a funky really because i was trying for that good clean release looking back pushing the tension in the wrong direction just pushing it that way which is intuitive yeah i said you know that's counterintuitive to push pressure that way you know and it may you know and you may you may be able to shoot really well but you know for a long time preserving your shoulders and preventing injury you know there's a big difference between you know muscle soreness like i kind of mentioned earlier in actual injury pain yeah an injury pain like you should not experience injury pain you know you may be you may not be able to shoot 400 arrows in a day just due to you know like i couldn't beat my arms and fall off right now just like when you start weightlifting you only do something you know yeah you know fatigue would make me do things that aren't right but you know assuming you're you know your muscles are conditioned enough to do it you ought to be able to shoot 500 shots a day with no shoulder pain yeah eventually if you're sure if you're you know if you're shooting you know if you're shooting 30 50 shots or whatever a day and you're quitting because your shoulder's getting sore that's a red flag doing something wrong you need to get some coaching for sure and you know i you know it's work i do it a lot myself but it's worth you know looking at the way you shoot and kind of evaluating whether or not you're at risk for at risk for some of these injuries because it does end people's people's careers yeah so yeah the whole point of all this is that you know we want we want you to continue to be able to shoot a boat without getting injured for decades to come it's a lifelong type sport and uh you know even even if a couple people watch this and change how they're shooting to just avoid injury you know you don't have to be the best shooter out there we're not trying to make you the best shooter out there but if uh you know just doing it in a safe manner it really it really helped me uh it'll eliminate a lot of problems for me and uh you know if you if you want to learn more into into the system that tom teaches and and which you know i would recommend i did it and i really i really like it um he has an online course called solid archery mechanics which breaks it down the whole process down detail by detail um it's made me a better shooter you know it you know it might not be for everybody but the elements that prevent injury i think everybody should be able to should utilize in some way and his in his core solid archery mechanics is available at at rmsgear.com armistgear.com our main website page has a link to buy the course yeah you can like you you can buy the course and then you have lifetime access to it

Channel: Outdoor Life

Views: 75,175

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Id: RRRnt1Zk7UI

Length: 28min 40sec (1720 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 26 2022