Traditional Archery

For the traditional archer, the temptation to shoot a higher poundage is large. The higher the poundage, the more inconsistencies you start to remove from your archery as your arrows travel faster. Today though I want to talk about the dangers of “over-bowing” yourself.

Unfortunately, many archers neglect the preparation needed to build yourself up to a higher poundage – and without this preparation you’re likely to do yourself far more harm than good. I recommend:

• Before anything else, making sure your technique is sound. To start with, you’re going to need to be holding the extra weight using your much stronger back muscles rather than your arm.
• Try to build up to the higher poundage. If it helps, try to get hold of a formaster (basically a large elastic band that mirrors the tension of the bow). Many archery stockists sell them, and the real value of them is they allow you to build up your strength by practising just a few minutes a day.
• Try attaching the formaster to your elbow rather than holding it on your fingers, and try to build up to holding at full draw for 30 seconds without shaking.

Unfortunately, this is not a regular part of archery training, and many archers struggle on shooting a bow that actually may be too heavy for them. If you’re over-bowing yourself, there are often a few tell-tale signs:

• You might start to shoot “through your face”. Taken from hard experience, this can be extremely painful, and results from pressing your anchor point too tightly so that the string catches your face on the way past. To varying degrees, this is amazingly common, and I’ve heard archers say that this is just a sign that you are referencing properly. I strongly disagree with this – you shouldn’t be damaging your face when you shoot, and you can achieve perfectly good back tension without doing this.
• If you shoot point of aim for example, try to make sure you reference by simply touching the side of your mouth.
• If you shake at full draw. It may just be that you haven’t shot for a while, but if it continues then it’s time to consider a lower poundage.
• If you forward loose regularly, this might be a sign that at your current poundage you can’t maintain the necessary back-tension.

Quite often the answer comes down to regular practice, but before you shoot make sure you warm up your upper body. Everybody warms up differently (if at all), but I recommend at least a range of ‘windmilling’ with your arms, then try and stretch your arms behind your back.