# How should my left both shoulder be/feel at full draw?



## Ridgerunner7

Should my bow shoulder be slightly pushed out away from my spine or should it be more compressed into my body and spine? Both of them feel comfortable to me but there is about 1 inch difference in draw length between the two. Right now I compress my shoulder into my body slightly to stabilize and to bring the string to my nose? If I don't do that the string is about 1 inch from my nose. What is the correct way?


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## aread

I think the "correct" way is down and extended. The important thing is that it is down. 
However, I've heard both ways from different coaches. So like everything else, try both and see which one works better for you.
Personally, I find that down and extended gives me a little better range of motion with my release shoulder.

Allen


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## jrdrees

Flexing the bow away from you could lead to several different "target panic" symptoms (Heeling into the handle, raising, twisting, etc... I've done them all.) I found my most natural "bow arm" with the often mentioned tip about leaning against a wall with your bow hand (in a fist if you can stand it) and feel where your most sturdy arm position is without having to flex in or out... this should be your best bow arm/shoulder. Other advice anyone?


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## Huntinsker

I have people do this little exercise when I'm fitting them for a bow and helping with form. Put your hand on top of your bow shoulder just before it drops down your arm. Now look at your hand and slowly raise your arm out to your side (abduct). In the first 5-10 degrees of abduction your hand will actually move down because the shoulder doesn't actually need to come up to raise your arm. The drop you see and feel when abducting the arm is from the humeral head rotating so its convexity is more inline with the glenoid fossa's concavity. To me, that amount of "down" is all the lower you want to go. Any thing more than that requires you to use your Lats and other muscles to keep it down that much lower. 

Now if you do that and allow the humeral head to press into the glenoid fossa WITHOUT letting your shoulder collapse or shrug, that should be all the further "out" you push. Anything further "out" than that requires muscles and when muscles are working more than they need to, they shake more than they should.


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## SonnyThomas

Hunt, pics would help.....


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## coastiehunter2

Griv just had this one on his daily tips. Do a search u will find it.


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## Tiroarco

Bone on bone at all times. If you are pushing your shoulder out from your body you are allowing for more variances. 
If your shoulder is down and into your socket your are reducing the variance thus increasing repeatability and accuracy.


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## Fury90flier

if you've ever done shrugs in the gym...same thing on the low side. Once shoulder is low, use the rhombus muscles to hold the shoulders in-line...helping move the shoulder blades to the spine. Keep squeezing the rhombus muscles as you rotate through the clicker...when the clicker goes off, the rhombus releases and allows the bow shoulder to spring forward (relax) toward the target.

To feel those muscles. fold your arms in front of you while holding your elbows...elbows at your side. Now pull your elbows apart- you should feel the rhombus muscle.

I was working on shoulder/back stuff this evening. What was finding is when I pulled the shoulders in-line with the back muscles and squeezed, holding the alignment- clearing the clicker I thought of letting the muscle spring open when relaxed (click- relax draw hand, bow hand and rhombus) this caused the shoulder to move towards the target.


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## Padgett

Grip and Front Arm
This is the basic grip that I see on all pro shooters and the grip that I feel is the best way to attach yourself to the bow:

To begin we are going to discuss what touches the bow and what does not touch the bow, your thumb muscle and your thumb and your index finger are the only three things allowed to touch the bow. You are going to put your knuckles at a 45 degree angle and this will move the palm and love lines out of the way. Then you index finger should be touching the front of the riser, the other three fingers are curled up and very lightly touching the palm. They should not be stretched out or stiff and by curling them and lightly touching the palm they will be nice and relaxed.

This is the neutral front arm position that will really give you a solid feel when at anchor and allow you to produce some wicked good float:

Reach out in front of yourself and put your knuckles at a 45 degree angle, now try and point your elbow down towards the floor and keep the knuckles at the 45 degree angle. This will make your arm very stiff and it will move your arm into the strings path which are two bad things, now still keeping the knuckles at the 45 degree angle turn your elbow straight out to the side and again it will feel horrible but now the arm will look really bent and your shoulder will try to stick out to the side and the deltoids try and raise up. Again all of this is really bad. Now put your elbow in between at the 45 degree angle position and again put the knuckles at the 45 degree position and now things should feel nice, this combination of the knuckles and elbow does many things. It allows your arm to be straight but moves your arm away from the string, it keeps your arm straight but gives the perception of it being bent, it lets your arm stay nice and low.

Now that we have your arm and grip at the right angles you are ready to feel the something new, we are going to treat our front arm as a broom stick and when we come to full draw we are going to allow the broom stick to push back into the front shoulder socket. This is a feeling that most people don't ever feel because they are pushing forward into the grip lengthening their system which our human body has the ability to do and this is bad, you want the bow to push your arm back into the shoulder socket and this is where the really strong float starts happening.

The last thing I want to cover in this article is the pressure you feel in your grip, put your arm out in front of you and get the hand cocked back and in the grip position and then follow your arm bone forward into your hand and look at where it hits the thumb muscle. It comes through on the lower half of the thumb muscle towards the bottom about a half inch up nowhere near the thumb joints. This is where you want most of the bow pressure to be, you do not want to have the pressure going into the top half of the thumb muscle. where the skin goes across to the index knuckle. In the past I was warned about healing the bow and I have always stayed away from pressure on the lower half of my grip but that was back when people had their entire palm on the bow, now that we have only our thumb muscle on the bow it is a non issue. I personally like to have a relatively neutral amount of pressure on my entire thumb muscle with a little extra on the lower half, as long as I am not pushing the top half into the grip of the bow I am happy.


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## N7709K

^^^^
So how do you keep the bow shoulder down when you let the bow side ride back and subsequently up? Why do you feel workin only the back half is more beneficial than both sides together and keeping dynamic tension? 

Griv has a few vids up about shoulder position, couple threads in here have pics/vids and descriptions oh shoulder position with how/why(think Rev's thread has most of it). 

Op- what type of shot do you shoot now, passive or aggressive? Working both halves or just the back half?


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## Ridgerunner7

N7709K said:


> Op- what type of shot do you shoot now, passive or aggressive? Working both halves or just the back half?


I shoot fairly aggressive back tension but only pull with my back half while my front half stays static. My bow shoulder is down and in just a little but not compressed to my spine. More relaxed I guess. I do feel a little more solid with it compressed in but my anchor changes. I asked John Dudley this and he said down and extended is his preference.


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## N7709K

Down and extended/relaxed will give the best alignment and ultimately the best hold as the tension is balanced between the halves. When the bow shoulder rides up you get a low bob and fatigue sets in much faster due to the larger amount of muscle use during the shot to hold steady. 

http://www.archerytalk.com/vb/showthread.php?t=2254308&page=2 

Skim here a bit and you'll find info about shoulder alignment and the rationale as to why we prefer different methods.


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## SonnyThomas

Explanations, detail..... You don't need a bow in hand to find that which your shoulder and arm like. Me; Center bow hand to your chest. Have bow hand like you would have it to the riser grip. Don't force, just straighten bow arm like you would with a bow in your hand. The shoulder stays low naturally. the elbow will have a slight bend and the bow hand just like holding the bow. Now, just transform what you have to holding a bow at full draw. The only difference will be compression due to draw weight.

That stuff given of Koreans, given as best trained....No. Best disciplined in the world. They may be very that, but they have disciplines of a different kind, like "you *will* do this" or you are sent back to whatever you were doing before. Like leaning on a wall to find how the shoulder should feel, less stressful (?). And this leaning on the wall is said may take months before one is allowed to pick up a bow.... Well, the Koreans are good, but they get beat.


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## IRISH_11

I hear what everybody is saying here and they are all good points. What I failed see anyone address was stance. Or maybe I missed it. My "OPINION" for what it worth is that no 2 people are built the same as far as bone and muscle structure. This being the case in order to achieve the shoulder/arm position as previously discussed will be largely dependent on stance. Hunt chime in here and explain how open and closing your stance changes the position of the shoulder in the socket. Remember the only job you start at he top is digging a hole.


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## SonnyThomas

IRISH_11 said:


> I hear what everybody is saying here and they are all good points. What I failed see anyone address was stance. Or maybe I missed it. My "OPINION" for what it worth is that no 2 people are built the same as far as bone and muscle structure. This being the case in order to achieve the shoulder/arm position as previously discussed will be largely dependent on stance. Hunt chime in here and explain how open and closing your stance changes the position of the shoulder in the socket. Remember the only job you start at he top is digging a hole.


Proper stance is basic. Each person starts with basic and adjusts as they find the best for them. Stance adjusts the shoulder/arm position follows. So don't go making it something more than it is.


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## Donjr721

My bow arm shoulder feels like its on fire and being pounded on by a sledge hammer after about 40 arrows. it pops and makes awful noises when I draw, hurts bad the next day. that's how that bow shoulder should feel.

just kidding, but mine seriously feels that way (2 surgery, both shoulders)

when I'm shooting well, I feel my shoulder feels like its slightly being pushed down with someones hand, and maybe rotated like I'm turning my elbow out a hair, almost like my arm straight out motioning a car to stop, if that makes sense, but holding bow at full draw while doing it.


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## dua lam pa

Padgett said:


> Grip and Front Arm
> 
> This is the neutral front arm position that will really give you a solid feel when at anchor and allow you to produce some wicked good float:
> 
> 
> Now that we have your arm and grip at the right angles you are ready to feel the something new, we are going to treat our front arm as a broom stick and when we come to full draw we are going to allow the broom stick to push back into the front shoulder socket. This is a feeling that most people don't ever feel because they are pushing forward into the grip lengthening their system which our human body has the ability to do and this is bad, you want the bow to push your arm back into the shoulder socket and this is where the really strong float starts happening.



Wicked good float , does not always produce the best shots nor the most Xs

allowing the arm to ride into the socket does produce a very good float indeed , however it destroys a strong dynamic shot - and sooner than later the shoulder will forsake you -


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## jacksonmic

Hi friends ,I got many useful information from this .thankyou for sharing.


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## Padgett

Crap, I didn't realize that n7709k had asked a question about my little grip and front arm article.

I am totally with you and I absolutely do not want my front shoulder to ride up and I read my article over and over and don't think I was promoting that, to me you must keep the elbow at the proper angle not straight down and not straight out to the side. Somewhere inbetween there usually referred to as a 45 degree angle is a position that is neutral and it allows you shoulder to stay nice and low.

As far as being a passive or aggressive shooter, I am more on the side of passive but not totally passive. I do have a steady amount of tension on the wall that I maintain through out the shot but I do not progressively ramp it up.

Now with that being said my front side to me gets put in lock down mode that gets there by being very balanced, I am not using muscles to fix problems because of my shooting form being very poorly set up so my front side remains very solid and strong feeling through out the shot with very minimal help from the muscles in my shoulder or arm. I have shot both ways very agressive and very passive and for me being in the middle produces the most enjoyable shooting, I have shot many of my 60x rounds being a aggressive shooter and for me the stress level to keep that many muscles in check from the front to the rear of my shot was just to much to enjoy the experience. Now my shooting is enjoyable because I have very little muscle from front to back of my shot to keep under control or tweek during the shot.

In fact really the only muscle group that I even consider during my shot is my back tension that I use to put a consistant amount of pressure against the wall, everything else remains un touched during the shot.

In the beginning when I first began using this method of shooting I really struggled with one little glitch that I just couldn't understand, I would be on a 12 ring or x and I would be watching the shot happen and my pin would float over to the edge and I would try to bring it back over to the center and the moment that I felt my arm try and move the pin my hinge would fire and many times it would result in a miss by just a 1/8 inch. I struggled with this for months and then I finally realized that what was happening was my hinge was sitting on the edge of firing and that little amount of muscle tension that my body was going to use to move the pin back over was all the hinge needed to fire. Now I refuse to try and touch my pin, I watch my shot happen and as long as my pin floats within the x I leave it alone, if it floats to any location that I don't feel comfortable with I simpy push the abort button and let down. I refuse to mess with my float, I see it as a form of control over the shot and control leads to dropping x's.


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## Padgett

dua lam pa, what does Destroy a strong dynamic shot mean? I would also like to hear you explanation that really strong float doesn't produce the best shots, I realize in my personal shooting that sometimes I have a shot where the float was really really good and I missed but it was because my hinge didn't fire and I was mentally weak and went ahead and forced the shot to happen even though my breath was running out.

This summer I know one of the most common things you would have heard from me on a 3d course after I let down was "holy crap that was a good hold". I am still only 4 years into hinge shooting and two of those 4 years were total suffering, So for me right now I come to anchor and I settle in and run my engine and if it doesn't fire within my optimal float window I stinking let down. My thing is if the footing is good and I am having a good float day then sure the float was good on this shot and it will be the same or better on the next shot.


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## cloquet

Ttt


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## nuts&bolts

dua lam pa said:


> Wicked good float , does not always produce the best shots nor the most Xs
> 
> allowing the arm to ride into the socket does produce a very good float indeed , however it destroys a strong dynamic shot - and sooner than later the shoulder will forsake you -


Going to have to explain a "STRONG" dynamic shot.
When a shooter gets a "STRONG" dynamic shot....mastered...

the results are OOOOHHHHHH so nice.


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## cloquet

Very interesting but bow setup must come first. Recently there was a thread on AT on setting up a bow that held low. The idea was to weaken the lower limb by backing it out or raising the nock point above the berger hole thus raising the nock point forcing the top limb to pull harder than the bottom thus tipping the bow slightly up so it would hold on target. Anyone care to make a comment? Thank you for any input.


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## IRISH_11

If you were shooting a recurve were the poundage stacked up through out the draw cycle I would agree. Compounds on the other hand let off so the better bet would be to take a quarter turn out of the top limb. Its all about the resultant force vector the top limb is putting on the top limb pocket. Raising or lowering the nocking point really doesn't accomplish much except that maybe you may find the sweet spot of where you bow gets the most level nock travel. Hard to tell without high speed video or a really good draw board. Or you can forget about all this snake oil crap and search you tube for George Ryals Thing A Week. I forget which number it is but he explains why the bow wants to go low and how to fix it. It is a form flaw from shoulders being to high which is a natural occurrence from the draw cycle. We have to raise our shoulders to as this allows us to draw with more power. Once the cams roll over and the let off occurs you need to lower your shoulder. Once you do this the results speak for themselves.


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## Fury90flier

cloquet said:


> Very interesting but bow setup must come first. Recently there was a thread on AT on setting up a bow that held low. The idea was to weaken the lower limb by backing it out or raising the nock point above the berger hole thus raising the nock point forcing the top limb to pull harder than the bottom thus tipping the bow slightly up so it would hold on target. Anyone care to make a comment? Thank you for any input.


it's called tiller tuning. Basically a poor mans way of cam sync...at least the way I understand what is going on.


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## cloquet

IRISH_11 said:


> If you were shooting a recurve were the poundage stacked up through out the draw cycle I would agree. Compounds on the other hand let off so the better bet would be to take a quarter turn out of the top limb. Its all about the resultant force vector the top limb is putting on the top limb pocket. Raising or lowering the nocking point really doesn't accomplish much except that maybe you may find the sweet spot of where you bow gets the most level nock travel. Hard to tell without high speed video or a really good draw board. Or you can forget about all this snake oil crap and search you tube for George Ryals Thing A Week. I forget which number it is but he explains why the bow wants to go low and how to fix it. It is a form flaw from shoulders being to high which is a natural occurrence from the draw cycle. We have to raise our shoulders to as this allows us to draw with more power. Once the cams roll over and the let off occurs you need to lower your shoulder. Once you do this the results speak for themselves.


Thank you, very interesting.


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## dua lam pa

nuts&bolts said:


> Going to have to explain a "STRONG" dynamic shot.
> When a shooter gets a "STRONG" dynamic shot....mastered...
> 
> the results are OOOOHHHHHH so nice.


- dy·nam·ic
dīˈnamik/Submit
adjective
1.(of a process or system) characterized by constant change, activity, or progress.

John Dudly preaches this a lot better than I can explain it - 
The front half and back half of your shot opposing yet working together. Strong shot. Your not waitng your making the shot happen , once you set your process into motion it the energy keeps going towards the target until follow thru - 
Its a very ,v ery addictave , explosive feeling. 

" dua lam pa, what does Destroy a strong dynamic shot mean? I would also like to hear you explanation that really strong float doesn't produce the best shots, I realize in my personal shooting that sometimes I have a shot where the float was really really good and I missed but it was because my hinge didn't fire and I was mentally weak and went ahead and forced the shot to happen even though my breath was running out. "

Ok Padg , ya might wanna sit down for this one. I will start by saying untill June of this year I shot a non Dynamic shot. I allowed my bow shoulder to push inwards into the socket and act "as a 2x4" and the work came mostly from the back half. This does create that wicked float , undoubtially , it also creates a weak shot , by this I mean your shoulder will give out ( ride up or down ) . In short we need to shoot our shot , not our float !
I would be willing to bet when you miss under pressure , you thought the shot was good , and you blow out 12:00 or 6:00 , by blow out I mean a slight miss out of the X. 
You can shoot 60X sometimes , but a bit of a coyottee ugly face ( lots broken lines as apposed to blowing out the X ) 
I went thru nationals last year with 120 great feeling shots , all should have been X - I blew the bottoms and tops off of less than 10% due to my shoulder tricking me. 
As fate would have it I ended up a Blue's breakfast table for a couple of days -Things are gonna be different this year in Kentucky -


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## N7709K

For a dynamic shot there needs to be a balance in the tension between the halves. To allow for this balance the sides/halves need to be setup and kept in proper alignment. At full draw there is going to be 20lbs or so(on average) of weight that needs to be held between the hands for the shot to break.

Here is where people get lost; the halves need to be relaxed, but the tension needs to be held between them. When you utilize only one half to execute the shot you are no longer able to remain fully relaxed throughout the platform. With both halves engaged the hands move apart during the shot process, this movement is driven by the expansion in the chest/contraction in the back.

Watch the hands- watch how the hands move upon the shot breaking and watch the final position of the hands at the end of the follow through. 

As far as the comment of hold- put your thumb on the peg and pull like hell, dot sits doesn't it but it will never hit the middle if the shot were to break. Relax both sides, come up and run your shot while relaxed. Your dot flutters but you stuff them down the pipe every time, just cause your sight looks good doesn't mean the setup and shot is correct; if you sight picture is different from that of a "perfect" shot you need to let down and reset.... Or you can miss


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## dua lam pa

N7709K said:


> For a dynamic shot there needs to be a balance in the tension between the halves.
> 
> Here is where people get lost; the halves need to be relaxed, but the tension needs to be held between them.


 Same page as Jacob - However I gave up on the word "relaxed " 
Relaxed tension is an oxymoron , and damn near impossible to understand or teach. 
- I understand 100% the feeling your are describing and I think there are levels of intensity to this feeling.


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## wv hoyt man

Marked for later.


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## Joe Schnur

Tag


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