Most archers strive to develop the most accuracy possible. Often times when you miss, you put it down to not having a steady bow arm. Sometimes when you’re lining up the shot, the pins in your sight seem to jump or drift. You can’t get a stable lock on your target. You compensate by tightening up all of your muscles, which just makes your problem of missing the target worse.
How do you improve your accuracy and consistency? Is there a way of keeping your bow arm steady so you shoot your best, all the time? There are three factors to perfect to keep your bow arm steady, and give you consistently good accuracy. They are:
- Mental
- Physical
- Your Equipment
Success means that you need to get all three perfected.
Training the Mind
Ancient philosophies refer to archery practice as an example of how the mind controls your actions. It’s not just a handy metaphor; it is your mind that lines up and takes the shot.
You can hit the target hundreds of times in practice, but when it counts, you freeze or choke and miss. This is known as target panic. Any top athlete knows the importance of having the right mental attitude, and archery is about the mind as much as it is your body and equipment.
No one can pick up a bow or get behind the wheel of a car an get it right for the first time. The theory is not the same as practice.
Acquiring any skill involves using your conscious mind to learn, and then through repetition, you prime your unconscious mind to absorb and automatically repeat the necessary actions – this is known as muscle memory. When you don’t need to think about the mechanics of what you are doing, you can just do it.
Although you can teach yourself all the archery skills you need, having a few sessions with a professional to check your stance, form, and equipment helps you identify bad habits and work towards eliminating them.
The problem with the mental element of archery is that if you have bad habits, they become ingrained, and you need to root them out and replace them with good habits. Any psychologist will tell you that it takes about 21 days (on average) to remove a bad habit and replace it.
So, it’s much easier if you learn to do things the right way from the start.
Grouping Your Shots
You can work on your form with short range target practice and a few of these. Instead of worrying about aiming the bow, for now just practice your stance and routine. You should strive to consistently group your arrows in the same place by refining your technique. You can spend a shooting session practicing holding the bow steady for a few seconds after releasing the arrow. Or whatever part of your stance and shooting habits you need to improve.
You can use this technique on your backyard range (if you have one) to see how consistently you shoot when you concentrate on your form, without the distraction of aiming. If you write notes on your paper targets, you can compare the impact of modifying your shooting form over a few weeks time. This practice helps you identify what actions steady your bow arm.
Positive Reinforcement
You wince when you have a lousy shot, right? You probably beat yourself up about it. But do you ever acknowledge when your shot hit the sweet spot? Giving yourself a mental high five or vocalizing your satisfaction cues the subconscious into what makes a good shot. As a steady bow arm with proper form gave you that good shot, you let your subconscious know that this is what you want in the future.
Positive reinforcement gives you better and more consistent results than constantly criticizing your bow skills. When you believe that you have the skills and can consistently hit the target, you can perform better when it counts. Studies have shown that positive reinforcement has far better results than negative reinforcement.
Training the Body
If you are a professional archer, your performance splits 90% mental attitude and 10% physical ability. But that’s only really true if you have perfect shooting form and spend all day practicing. For most sports and hobby archers, improving your muscles and shooting stance will help you develop that steady bow arm.
Your Stance
How you stand impacts on the steadiness of your bow arm. More particularly, how you aim depends on your foot position – your toes need to point towards the target.
A solid stance sees your feet shoulder length apart, with your body weight evenly distributed over both feet. Avoid locking your knees and you’ll have the most balance and flexibility. In Tai Chi, this position is the called the horse riding stance, and it keeps your back straight and strong.
Practicing your stance several times a day with or without your bow builds good form and is excellent for your body alignment.
The Bow Arm
As technology changes (particularly with compound bows), so does the advice on how to hold your bow arm. Let’s get one thing straight – any method of holding your bow arm can work if you train hard and practice for consistency.
But the right practice gives you the accuracy and consistency with less stress on your muscles and bones, making the whole process of shooting your bow more relaxing and fun.
Basically, the three bones in your arm (ulna, radius, and humerus) need to line up straight to direct the force of the shot through the center of the joints and bones, putting less stress on your arm muscles.
You should aim to shoot with your back muscles. Your elbow, like your knees, is not locked in place. A steady bow arm is not a rigid bow arm, and your aim is not locked in but soft and floating.
Most people instinctively try to use their arm muscles rather than their back muscles to pull the bowstring back. Focus on your shoulder blades and concentrate on pushing them together when you draw. Hence, you use your back muscles – using your arm muscles alone results in the possibility of underdrawing and more muscle fatigue.
It sounds contradictory, but you should draw to your anchor point and then take a second or two to let your arm muscles relax (while still keeping the bow at full draw) and your shoulder to drop before executing the shot. Plus, you train yourself to keep your bow arm steady after you fire the shot.
If you know that you will lower your bow after you fire the arrow, then your mind starts to anticipate the movement. It’s only a fraction of a second, but you unconsciously begin to lower the bow as you release the arrow.
In some cases, this lowering starts a fraction of a second before the release. The impact of this anticipation is that your aim moves with the bow, and you miss your target – your bow arm is not steady.
By training yourself to hold your steady shooting stance for a few seconds after the release, you create a steadier bow arm and shoot more accurately before you allow the bow to dip.
As you age, your ability to force your muscles into holding a rigid fix on your target decreases, and you may notice the effect of poor shooting form. Adopting the right shooting form and learning to float your aim around your target, so you keep your muscles and bones aligned but unlocked keeps you shooting accurately into your later years.
Using the right muscles will improve your accuracy, consistency, and reduce fatigue and strain. Using the proper muscles gives you that steady bow arm that you’re looking for.
Muscle Tone
Archery will give you muscle tone (daily practice with a lot of shots), but you also need muscle tone to provide you with the physical strength to draw and hold the bow steady. A secondary training program helps to develop strength.
Short Range Shooting
A short-range (five to ten yards) with an archery safe target or wall, set up at home lets you practice consistency and build up your archery muscles. You should try to shoot every shot the same and check that your bow arm remains steady. Daily practice is ideal, but a couple of sessions a week are better than nothing.
The advantage of blank bale shooting is that you practice with your bow and build up muscle memory to learn how to keep your bow arm steady before, during and after the shot.
You can condition your archery muscles during your lunch break, traveling, or in your home by using one of these. Training aids like these can help you keep your muscle memory and tone when it’s not convenient to go to a practice range. You can work on your stance and the muscles involved in shooting your bow no matter what the weather is like.
Strength Training
Regular exercise at the gym or at home develops muscle strength, particularly in your core back muscles. Ideally, you are using the large muscles in your back to keep your bow arm steady. If you’re right-handed, you want to build up:
- Right rhomboid muscle: upper back connecting the shoulder blade to spine.
- Right rear deltoid muscle: shoulder muscle at the back.
- Left anterior deltoid muscle: shoulder muscle at the front.
Free weights (instead of weight machines) let you concentrate on the smaller muscles for balance and control. Work on your core with sit-ups, crunches, and planks. However, if you’re aiming to improve the steadiness of your bow arm you should work both sides of your body.
Archery already unbalances your muscle groups’ strength depending on your shooting arm, so use regular strength training to improve your overall core strength.
When you concentrate on training your body, you build muscle strength and memory through a combination of exercises and regular archery practice. Physical strength and proper form will give you a steady bow arm over time.
Nutrition Matters
It’s not that you need to follow a specific diet to be a champion archer, but the right diet builds muscles. More importantly, you need to keep your blood sugar stable and remain hydrated while shooting.
A low blood sugar level or dehydration will give your body the shakes, which does nothing for your bow arm’s steadiness. Also, stay away from caffeine on days that you’re shooting.
Know Your Equipment
When the archer uses the right bow they can steady their bow arm and make their best shots. But if your bow is wrong for your body shape and strength, you are hampering yourself before you even take your first shot.
Your body determines the right physical parameters of the bow for your draw length and weight – getting these wrong will definitely affect your bow arm’s steadiness.
Draw Length
If your draw length is too long, you overextend your bow arm, and it starts to shake. If you find yourself raising and extending your shoulder, you probably have an overly long draw length. It’s worth shortening it and seeing if your ability to hold your arm steady improves.
You can check your draw length by getting a friend to photograph you from the side and back while you are shooting. If your draw length is correct, then your elbow will be just above or level with the arrow in the side view. From behind your elbow needs to line up with the arrow without drifting to the right or left.
A short draw length is equally bad, as it doesn’t give you the proper alignment of bone and muscle. If you’re super relaxed, you might get away with it for a while, but your form will ultimately suffer. You aim for the sweet spot, where the bow length is just right for you and you can maintain a steady bow arm.
Draw Weight
If you strain to hold too much draw weight, you tire quickly, your bow arm shakes, and your accuracy suffers. While a higher draw weight may make you feel strong, you won’t impress anyone by failing to hit the target.
When you’re overbowed you’re using more energy and not getting as much practice or enjoyment as you could with a draw weight of a few less pounds.
As you practice and build up muscle strength, you will use a higher draw weight, but you need to decide how to balance accuracy and consistency against shooting at the edge of your capabilities.
Stabilizers
The wrong stabilizer set up impacts on your bow arm and your accuracy. If you’re not getting the results you want, it’s worth experimenting with different stabilizer options. The stabilizer set up is another area where it may be too heavy, too light, or unbalanced. It would be best if you experimented with weight and set up to fine tune your bow to promote a steady aim (and a steady bow arm).
You need to balance out the upper and lower limbs on a recurve bow until you find the sweet spot to maintain a steady bow arm and avoid missing the target due to the bow pulling down or up in the draw.
Bow Grip
There’s a temptation to grasp the bow firmly to hold it in place, but that puts torque on the limbs and ultimately ruins your bow. The correct grip is a relaxed closed hand or a relaxed open hand with a wrist sling.
You may prefer a thick or a thin grip, and you can add grip tape to your riser to make sure that your grip is comfortable and fits your hand. The proper grip on the bow avoids torque and aids accuracy.
Bow Sight
The bow sight helps you aim, and the right bow sight helps you maintain a steady bow arm as well. A bow sight with a bubble, for example, gives you a visual reference to your stance and if you are keeping the bow level. Your bow sight’s “fix” on your target will show you how relaxed and steady you are holding your bow arm.
Finally
In most sports, like golf, badminton, or diving, you employ a professional coach or instructor to teach you the most efficient way of improving your skill level. Professional athletes have a team of people getting them in shape to compete, even when they are at the top of their game.
If you can access a professional archery coach, you can benefit from their experience and pick up useful, practical tips to help you up your game.
A steady bow arm does not exist in isolation. To get that steady bow arm, you need to have all the other elements of physical, mental, and practical equipment in place. When you improve your bow arm’s steadiness, you raise all of your archery skills and become a better archer.