Three levels of shoulder stability

We've told you that the focus, the focal point is definitely going to be front shoulder stability, correct? So in the team you've probably noticed me filming a bunch of you, that means you are a great demonstration of what I'm about to go through. So you notice in the team we have people at different levels, we have like yellow shirts level two development squad, orange is level three and red is level four and what's interesting to me is that I could almost look at your front shoulders and categorize you in this skill level, okay? So what I'm seeing with a lot of the level two arches, development squad arches, is that you are all getting into shoulder alignment. Give yourselves a little round of applause for that. That was really little, all right, that's all right. So you're getting into shoulder alignment, that's excellent, that's a good start. However, on the follow-through position when you release, it's kind of collapsing inwards, make sense? The arm's breaking that way. This means that you're not maintaining the stability of the front shoulder and intent strongly enough with your shoulder alignment throughout the execution of the shot, make sense? So when the tension releases on the break of the shot, the arm reacts in like this, okay, rather than maintaining shoulder alignment through the follow-through. Now, level three arches, what I'm typically seeing here is much better, if not perfect, much better control of breaking of the shoulder alignment, okay? What I'm seeing at this level is typically on the break of release, the shoulder does a little jump up like that. So the shoulder is jumping to anticipate the weight of the bow falling into the bow sling for the bow roll. And so generally, maybe if there's a little bit of collapse, okay, but it's much better. And if you're maintaining shoulder alignment, the shoulder's popping up to hold the arm up rather than keeping the shoulder down through follow-through like this, okay? So it becomes a factor of also maintaining that intent of stabilizing the shoulder down through the follow-through, okay? And then what I'm seeing with the level four arches, the red shirt guys is again, a bit of progress, a bit better. But what I'm seeing in you guys is that the shoulder kind of jumps and then goes back down. But the initial reaction of the shoulder is actually up. And this indicates that again, there's that little bit of anticipation of the bow jumping that's creeping into your form, okay? Whereas really, we want to make sure that the shoulder is actively stabilized throughout that shot. Okay, do you guys remember what we did on Tuesday? I think most of you were here. Liz, do you want to come down and we'll demonstrate again? So the first thing we did was you got a partner and then I'm the bow, she's the archer, she's setting the front shoulder, internally rotating the arm, okay? We're getting the right position. And then we're just kind of stress testing this front shoulder position a little bit, right? Really making her work for it, okay? This is much better than Tuesday. Okay, well done. Let's hear from our guests. So obviously trying to just make sure she's already got the right position but that under a little bit of load, she's maintaining the correct intensity of keeping that shoulder set as well as the shoulder alignment locked in. Rather than as soon as it's tested at all or stressed, just crumbling in form, okay? The second thing we're going to do today is we're going to introduce some side plank position drills. So here's what it's going to look like. You're going to get your flex band, you're going to go into a side plank position, okay? Set the front shoulder and go through and do a number of shots in this manner. So what this is doing is when you go into a side plank position and set that front shoulder, it's under a fair bit of load, isn't it? Yeah? So you have to maintain that set position. When you shoot a recurve bow, you draw back and as you pull the bow back, the tension increases and increases and increases until when you release, all the force on the front shoulder and throughout the body has a dynamic change. When you release, it goes pop and the bow jumps forward and this arm comes back and it's all exciting but the force through the body changes. But you know how I was saying the body learns to anticipate this force change and then it does these little adaptions that we do. We need it to maintain stability because otherwise, right at the microsecond before you release, your body will start to anticipate that force change. And so we use these drills to kind of retrain that because in this drill, you're actually maintaining the force on the front shoulder whilst you are adding in the release component. And yeah, this is very, very effective for training the strength of the front shoulder throughout the release. Yes Beck? Yeah, so it's typically that if you think about the force change first of all that's happening is when you pull back a recurve bow, you have force that's pulling this way and you have that force is pushing into the pressure point here, okay? So when you release, that force jumps forward, okay? The bow jumps and so you have this kind of compressive force through the shoulder joint that releases, right? So the shoulder naturally wants to kind of jump forward like that, okay? And so that's the anticipation of that is like I was saying, if you think about it in the level for the aspiring adept guys, there's that little jump there and you're able to correct it for the follow-through but there's still the initial jump is still there and we need to try and dampen that to the point where it's still stabilized right through that moment of release. So that you're in control of the bow at that instant when it reacts, yeah. Any other questions? That was a good question. Does that answer that question? Cool. Alright guys, so let's break now, let's line up on the shooting line with your flex bands and let's give this a go. Make sure you set your posture and everything straight guys, like this, okay? Your posture straight, make sure you're not doing something silly like that. Great. When you're ready, go into anchor position and just do say three or five reps of this and have a little relax. If you notice back on that one, you actually had less reaction in the first one. Yes, I do. I don't know why, I can't tell you why. It's good you adapted to this drill after even one rep, right? Damn, he's got good drills. Put a little rest for 10 seconds, we'll go again. Alright, I'm very curious everyone, listen up for a second. So who noticed that on the first couple that their arm naturally recoiled even in just a little bit? Anyone? A few people? Yeah. Now, did you notice any difference after you did a couple of reps? It's okay if the answer's no by the way, I'm just sincerely asking. Did anyone not notice a difference? Could anyone not tell if they were losing position or not? Did anyone think they got it perfect right from the beginning? Alright, so let's go again guys. I'll walk up and down, we'll have a little look. The jump part, let's grab your bows and shoot and the intention now is to maintain that intensity of that front shoulder set position all the way through the follow through, okay? And let's just notice if we can see any difference the first shots after the drill, okay?