Lead with the ELBOW: Back Tension | Archery Tips

Today we're going to cover a very common problem special beginners but a lot of intermediate archers haven't yet grown out of this problem and that is alignment. So I want you to pay attention to these two shots. Now if you're paying attention to anchor or whether it's collapsing and there was a slight collapse that wasn't the point. There's a reason why I've angled it this way with this focus for this background. If you go back and watch it you'll see a difference between this elbow alignment. This one shot was like this and the other shot was like that and we'll do it from this angle. First one is the bad alignment. The second one is the better alignment. What's the difference? The first shot the arm was sticking way out here. Second shot it went way back in line. Why does this matter? Alignment determines the efficiency of your shot. How you are loading the weight of the bow onto your body. If it's not in line you're wasting a lot of fatigue trying to hold it in place. You're using the wrong muscles and you're introducing a lot of lateral movement, horizontal dispersion into your shot. When you do get in the right alignment most of the weight is held in your skeletal structure and supported by your big muscles. This results in more effective shooting, less fatigue in shooting and decreased injury risk. Now this might not feel as bad if you're using a light beginner bow 20-25 pound. You can pull it back and let it go and it shouldn't be a problem but this is a 45 pound bow. You're shooting 45-50 pounds. You start feeling that fatigue a lot more significantly. So getting it back all the way and then doing a proper alignment, a proper execution is far easier and far more consistent especially over a long period of time once you master the right alignment. It definitely collapsed in the last shot so this is a proper one. Get the alignment in. That should be better. Now why do people get into the habit of locking the wrist and having the bad alignment? Part of it is because of the fixation on anchor. Whether you're taught this or you figured it out, people know that the most important part of a shot is to anchor, find a spot in your face and it's usually called the mouth. People start, you touch it and then you let go. So you're fixated on what your hand is doing. So again, we demonstrate, we do a shot. People will do this when they start out. They'll go, alright, I've got an anchor here. So they'll think, alright, touch hand on face and then let go. Even if you do it correctly with a long hold like you might be taught to or you're aiming, you go, alright, touch hand on face and then you let go. The problem there is because you're thinking hand, your hand is under a lot of tension and your wrist is under a lot of tension and all this focus on your hand means that you're activating the wrong muscles to draw the string. What happens of course is now you're using the muscles in your arm which are primarily this muscle group. The correct muscle which you want to be using is this muscle group. We think big muscles, not small muscles. So how do we fix this? There are two things that I think you need to focus on. This applies to every kind of archery whether it's Asiatic, thumb draw, traditional recurve, Olympic recurve. It's the same principle. Number one, relax your wrist. From the very beginning, many people when they set up their shot of their fingers on the string, they're already bending the wrist inwards. It's something I see so many beginners do. It's like the most common default position. You hold the string and your wrist is already bent inwards and you can feel that tension and stress in the wrist from this position. So you already lift it and you pull it back. You're already locked into this motion. You have to pull it back. You're thinking, oh my hands gonna be here. I'm gonna pull it back. You touch your face and then you bang, you go. So already from the beginning, that has to change. Instead of holding the bow and the string like this with your wrist bent inwards, let the wrist relax and go straight. So it can be straight, it can bend outwards, flop like that. This is the wrist that you want. You don't want this wrist. You want this wrist. So when you put it on the string, that relaxed straight position is what you want. You want to allow the weight of the bow to stretch your wrist out. Think of it like a big chain. You don't want this link to be so stiff it can't move. This has to be well lubricated and relaxed so that when it pulls, it allows the wrist to stretch out and the arm goes straight. This entire unit must operate like a chain. With the wrist relaxed and straight, this now allows you to focus on activating the right muscle group. Now it's one thing to know which muscle groups to use. It's something else to know how to activate them. So we don't really think muscle groups. We don't really think usual traps. Instead, we guide by motion. So the motion that you should be using is to lead with the elbow. So don't use your hand to lead the shot. Use your elbow to lead the shot. It's a subtle difference, but it's a very important difference. I want you to imagine that somebody has a string wrapped around the inside of your elbow and they're pulling your back from the inside like this. As a coach, I might gently tap here or tap here and nudge the elbow straight. When you draw, you're going to come back and use this elbow to go first. Not your hand going first, but your elbow going first. This is what I mean by leading with the elbow. This motion of elbowing, and you might think there's someone behind you, you're going to elbow them like that. That motion will activate the correct back muscles. This motion will only activate the smaller muscles. This is the bigger one. Crucially, we can train this with a stretching band, the most underrated tool which beginners should always have in their kit. It doesn't matter if you're just starting out or you're an advanced archer, always carry a stretching band in your kit because it allows you to go through your physical and mental shot process without holding the bow. Now, most of you will be using the band like this, you'll be holding it here, looping around your fingers and practice drawing. That's cool, that's fine. This is good for exercise and warm-ups, but it doesn't necessarily make you use the right muscles. You can do this all the time and not use the right muscles. So we have to force ourselves to use the right muscles. Remember, we dealt with the half-stressed wrist, which means that we want to practice drawing with our elbow. The key here is to wrap the stretching band around your elbow so you can't use your hand, which therefore means that when you practice drawing, you can only draw with your elbow. This is a very effective way to show someone, to teach someone and teach yourself how to use only the back muscles to draw, not your wrist. No hands here, right? I can't draw with my hand, so therefore I'm drawing only with my elbow. I'm wearing a thin white shirt today, so we'll see it from the back view, the different muscle groups. So if I draw with my fingers, it will look like this. Let's go straight to anchor point. There's not much back muscle engagement. I can go further and start activating it, but if I'm not using my elbow first, I'm kind of stuck on what I can do. Whereas, we go with the elbow method. Draw with the elbow, watch the shoulder blades. Again, with the elbow, that's the motion you want. This elbow alignment is so important that if you don't reach it, it will actually say you're not doing archery. You can be doing this for weeks and months and never hit that right alignment, and you never feel like you've done a proper shot. Often when I teach people to lead with their elbow, get the right alignment, they feel it in their back for the first time and go, ooh, that felt different. Number one, it felt easier because you're using stronger, bigger muscles to hold your skeletal structure together, which holds the bow steadier compared to using your arms. The second thing they find is they suddenly get more fatigued, not because it's a less efficient method, but because they've never trained the correct archery muscles. So again, you can be stuck doing this for many months when you start, but you never get used to doing this. You're all using the weaker, smaller muscles and not training up your bigger muscles in your back. This is what we mean by using back tension and using your back muscles. The takeaway from this lesson is don't lock your wrist. Don't get stuck in this position. When you're stuck here with your hand leading the way, you're locked in this position, it's really hard to go from here. Relax this wrist, let it stretch out, let the elbow lead the way, and it's much easier for you to reach your full alignment. So the question for today is how do you make sure that you are always getting your elbow in the right alignment? And do you carry one of these stretching bands around with you? Post your comments below. Thank you all for watching. Hope that was helpful, and hopefully we'll see you all next time.