Stickbow Target Archery Forums

2nd training suggestion
week 45 – Monday, 1 to Sunday 7th Novembern
Mondayn
- physical condition improvementn Stretching (10:00)n warm-up exercise before nordic walking . Make sure that your muscles are slowly brought to their “heavy duty” capability by starting with walking on normal speed, increasing your walking speed slowly but steady. In order to activate your shoulder muscles utilise walking poles similar like for crosscountry skiing. (20:00)n
- mental exercisesn Visualisation 5:00 (3 times per day)n This exercise is best done when you are in a quiet, comfortable environment. Keep your eyes closed and imagine that you are on the shooting lane. Do your whole shooting sequence and try to recall all the details that you are aware of. Imagine you are shooting groups of 3 arrows – with a little relexation time in between the groups. Repeat this exercise 2 times.
- shooting stylen Impact of your feet positions (15:00)n In general terms, the position of your feets is always referred to as “ open” or “closed” stand. This is seen relatively to a imaginary line drawn from the centre of your target to the tips of your feets. “Open” means that your body is slidly rotated towards your bow; the line is passing in between your feets. “Closed” means that the line is passing the tips of both of your feets. The purpose of this exercise is to show you the impact of open and closed stand on your shooting result.

Position yourself as if you are on the shooting lane. You don´t need your bow for this exercise – simply raise your hand into your shooting position. You use your bow-hand to aim towards an object about 20-30 yds away from your position. Than close your eyes and try to point with your pointing finger towards the object. If your body allingmen is ok. Your finger should cover the object when you open your eyes again. Now change the position of your feets to a more open stand and repeat the exercise again. Your body starts to build-up some reaction tensions that will move your upper body back into the neutral position – and your finger will miss the object. Repeat this exercise a couple of time – with a more or a less open stand. You should learn from this exercise how important the position of your feet is for your overall shooting built up.
- body balancingn Influence of stand (static) (10:00)n The standing position is said to be one of the most infuencing aspects – especially when you doing field archery or 3D. In fact it all has to do with the balancing of active and reactive muscles and so every misalingment or inbalancing of your body due to a sub-optimum standing position will lead to an influence on your shot
This exercise shall be conducted in combination with the shooting style experiment to see the result of misbalancing.
First exercise for body balancing this week is simply to recognize your centre of gravity. For this, use a convinient stand normal opening of your feets and start to bend your upper body towards to the front until you feel that you are loosing your balance. Than repeat this exercise with a more closed-up feet position and with a wide spread feet position. Than do it with an open stand – feel the potential of body positioning that the open stand offers to you

- equipment tuningn The start of the equipment tuning component should be that we first find out what we have got sofar. For this, note the current settings of the “variable” items of your bow and arrow into your diary. First of all, this helps you to recall your stettings e.g. if you change string or built new arrows. Now what should be included?
Starting with the bow, you have to record the physical dimensions of your string, the length between the ears, the location of the centre serving, its length and the location of your nock-indicator relatively to the top of the upper ear of your string. Record the number of fibres of your string as well as the material your string is made from. Also record the serving length of both ears. If you twist your string, record the number of rounds you have twisted it until you have reached the correct brace hight.

Tuesdayn
- physical condition improvementn Stretching (10:00)n warm-up exercise before nordic walking . Make sure that your muscles are slowly brought to their “heavy duty” capability by starting with walking on normal speed, increasing your walking speed slowly but steady. In order to activate your shoulder muscles utilise walking poles similar like for crosscountry skiing.

- mental exercisesn Visualisation 5:00 (3 times per day)n This exercise is best done when you are in a quiet, comfortable environment. Keep your eyes closed and imagine that you are on the shooting lane. Do your whole shooting sequence and try to recall all the details that you are aware of. Imagine you are shooting groups of 3 arrows – with a little relexation time in between the groups. Repeat this exercise 2 times.

- shooting stylen Impact of your feet positions (30:00)n Start with some warm-up exercises – such as stretching with a rubber band and some knee-bends. Once you feel warmed up (after 5-7 min), you should shoot 2 x 6 arrows towards a target without a face – distance not more than 10yds. The centre of the target should be in the elevation of your shoulders. Than fix a small mark on the target – could be a small sticker or a nail. This should be a aiming aid. We are now repeating Mondays exercises with bow and arrow. Have a good look at your feet alignment and shoot 2x 6 arrows. Place a 2nd mark there where the “centre” of you’re hits is. Than change your feet position to a more open stand. What your draw-length as it might change towards a shorter draw. You need to pull more into your shoulders to reach the same draw-length as with the closed stand. Repeat this exercise also with closed eyes: Position yourself, get your shooting position look at your target / your aiming spot and then pull your arrow back. Once you have pulled it back, remain for a second with closed eyes and release. Keep the eyes closed for another second – regardless what noise your arrow have made.
n
- body balancingn in combination with shooting style exercise, repeat Mondays exercises.

- equipment tuningn nonen

Wednesdayn
physical condition improvementn Stretching (10:00)n warm-up exercise before nordic walking . Make sure that your muscles are slowly brought to their “heavy duty” capability by starting with walking on normal speed, increasing your walking speed slowly but steady. In order to activate your shoulder muscles utilise walking poles similar like for crosscountry skiing.

- mental exercisesn Visualisation 5:00 (3 times per day)n This exercise is best done when you are in a quiet, comfortable environment. Keep your eyes closed and imagine that you are on the shooting lane. Do your whole shooting sequence and try to recall all the details that you are aware of. Imagine you are shooting groups of 3 arrows – with a little relexation time in between the groups. Repeat this exercise 2 times.

- shooting stylen Impact of your hip positions (10:00)n Position yourself in front of a mirrow. Pretend that you are going to raise your bow and tow an arrow towards an imaginary target. Watch your hip position – it might be easier if your are wearing a belt . Within your whole motion that you are doing, the hips should be parallel to your standing surface.
Now try to move your hips towards your imaginary target and repeat the whole exercise. You will feel that there is a upcoming destabilisation the more you are putting weight onto your front leg. Compare this with your usual shooting style and find out whether you need to work on your hip positions.
- body balancingn Standing position - balancing (10:00)n As field archery does not always offer a convinient standing position we sometimes have to life with a not-optimum shooting position. In order to be prepared for this, we are now trying to feel how our body reacts.
For this we are repeating the aiming exercise from Monday, with the difference that we are going to stand on one leg only. Use both legs for this exercise and find out what is more difficult. Than practise the more difficult one…n
Position yourself as if you are on the shooting lane. You don´t need your bow for this exercise – simply raise your hand into your shooting position. You use your bow-hand to aim towards an object about 20-30 yds away from your position. Than close your eyes and try to point with your pointing finger towards the object. If your body allingmen is ok. Your finger should cover the object when you open your eyes again.

- equipment tuningn Today, record the settings of your bow and your arrows. Note down what is the nominal draw weight of your bow (according to your bowyer), Measure the real draw-weight on your individual draw length. Check the tiller of your limbs (measure it at the end of the raiser (for take down bows) or at the end of the handle inlay. Check also the length of your tip reinforcements. On Longbows, you should find out what the off-set of your arrow rest / shelf is towards the centre line of your bow, both when it is unstringed and once it is stringed
(If there is a difference, you should check the arms – they might be twisted..)n

Thursdayn
- physical condition improvementn Stretching (10:00)n warm-up exercise before nordic walking . Make sure that your muscles are slowly brought to their “heavy duty” capability by starting with walking on normal speed, increasing your walking speed slowly but steady. In order to activate your shoulder muscles utilise walking poles similar like for crosscountry skiing.

- mental exercisesn Visualisation 5:00 (3 times per day)n This exercise is best done when you are in a quiet, comfortable environment. Keep your eyes closed and imagine that you are on the shooting lane. Do your whole shooting sequence and try to recall all the details that you are aware of. Imagine you are shooting groups of 3 arrows – with a little relexation time in between the groups. Repeat this exercise 2 times.

- shooting exercisen Start with some warm-up stretching exercisesn Today, we combine yesterdays exercises with bow and arrow. Again, place yourself in front of a target, not further away than 10 yds. It is important that the centre of the target is on a elevation of about your own shoulder height. Than fix a small mark on the target – could be a small sticker or a nail. This should be a aiming aid. We are now repeating Wednesday exercises with bow and arrow. Have a good look at your feet alignment and shoot 2x 6 arrows. Place a 2nd mark there where the “centre” of you’re hits is. Than change your feet position to a more open stand. What your draw-length as it might change towards a shorter draw. You need to pull more into your shoulders to reach the same draw-length as with the closed stand. Repeat this exercise also with closed eyes: Position yourself, get your shooting position look at your target / your aiming spot and then pull your arrow back. Once you have pulled it back, remain for a second with closed eyes and release. Keep the eyes closed for another second – regardless what noise your arrow have made.
n
- body balancingn in combination with shooting style exercise, repeat Wednesdays exercises.

- equipment tuningn nonen

Fridayn - physical condition improvementn go and have a swim! (Alternative do the nordic walk exercise). Try to swim continous for about 15 minutes. Than relax 5 minutes and repeat once moren
- mental exercisesn Visualisation 5:00 (3 times per day)n This exercise is best done when you are in a quiet, comfortable environment. Keep your eyes closed and imagine that you are on the shooting lane. Do your whole shooting sequence and try to recall all the details that you are aware of. Imagine you are shooting groups of 3 arrows – with a little relexation time in between the groups. Repeat this exercise 2 times.

- shooting stylen impact of your shoulder positions (10:00)n Have you ever watched your shoulders? If so have you ever tried to identify the influence of varous shoulder positions on your shooting? Today, we doing the “theoretical” part on this. Please be aware, wrong shoulder positions can lead to painfull insuries / long-time lasting damages to your bones, muscles and capsules.
Place yourself in front of your mirrow. Pretend you are pulling your bow and watch yourself moving into your shooting position. At any time, the alignment of your soulders towards your towing direction should be parallel. When your are in the aiming position at full pull, your elbow should be a parallel extension of your shoulders. Your front shoulder (the one of your bow hand) should be relaxed. Now try to turn your soulder towards your arrow and allow it to retourn back. You will notice that there are a number of muscles will be activated to move your shoulder in that direction. When your allow your shoulder to return, this muscles will be relaxed. Do this exercise a couple of time, also with closed eyes to feel the activation and relaxation of the muscles. Watch also your hips and your chest. The hips should be alligned as already practised and your chest should maintain a convinient upright position.
Note: If you have already the tendency to move your shoulder towards your arrow – especially when you pull your bow after a number of repeatations, than you need to work on your shoulder muscles / lower down the pundage that you are shooting – otherwise you running the serious danger of getting a cronical shoulder insury.

- body balancingn Standing on a slope (20:00)n Remember the exercises we did during this week on flat surface. Now search for a sloped surface (angle of 30° would be perfect). Place yourself along the slope andrepeat the exercises for stand and foot position both with open and closed eyes. Than turn 45° and repeat it once more. Do this again until you have made a full 360° round. You should recoginze that there is a tendency: uphill your aiming finger will be low, downhill it will be high. Sideways, you will have a tendency to towards downhill – following the gravity.
The lesson that you should learn, is that there is an influence from your stand combined with the gavity force to move away from the target – even if its perfectly upright. Find out how to compensate this behaviour – one way could be to change the stand.
- equipment tuningn Now lets record the settings of your arrow: shaft length and diameter, spine, weight of point, length of feathers and heigth as well as location of feathers along the shaft (how many inches away from your nocking point). If you do your arrows by yourself, write down your personnel sequence of arrow preparation. Measure the arrow deflection (spine) both on the raw shaft as well as on the finished shaft.
n
Saturdayn - physical condition improvementn
Stretching (10:00)n warm-up exercise before nordic walking . Make sure that your muscles are slowly brought to their “heavy duty” capability by starting with walking on normal speed, increasing your walking speed slowly but steady. In order to activate your shoulder muscles utilise walking poles similar like for crosscountry skiing.

- mental exercisesn Visualisation 5:00 (3 times per day)n This exercise is best done when you are in a quiet, comfortable environment. Keep your eyes closed and imagine that you are on the shooting lane. Do your whole shooting sequence and try to recall all the details that you are aware of. Imagine you are shooting groups of 3 arrows – with a little relexation time in between the groups. Repeat this exercise 2 times.

- shooting exercise (60:00)n Today the shooting exercise is devided into 3 sessions:
1st session: warm up (10:00)n 2nd session: Shooting style exercise (20:00)n repeat Friday´s exercises with bow and arrow. Again, place yourself in front of a target, not further away than 10 yds. It is important that the centre of the target is on a elevation of about your own shoulder height. Than fix a small mark on the target – could be a small sticker or a nail. This should be a aiming aid. We are now repeating Wednesday exercises with bow and arrow. Have a good look at your shoulder rotation and shoot 2x 6 arrows. Place a 2nd mark there where the “centre” of you’re hits is. Than change your shoulder position to a rotated position towards your arrow. What your draw-length as it might change towards a shorter draw. This is due to a blockage in your backtension caused by the shoulderblade. Repeat this exercise also with closed eyes: Position yourself, get your shooting position look at your target / your aiming spot and then pull your arrow back. Once you have pulled it back, remain for a second with closed eyes and release. Keep the eyes closed for another second – regardless what noise your arrow have made. Feel how the shoulder rotation influences your draw but also the location of your hits
3rd session: shooting a slope (30:00)n To prepare for this your need a sloped ramp – so a little bit of preparation would be required upfront. Your slope should be turnable by yourself only but solid enough to allow a secure & ballanced stand. Repeat yesterdays body balancing exercises and try to change your feet positions in order to compensate the “rotation” error.
- body balancingn nonen
- equipment tuningn nonen
Sundayn This is the desired day off – either to relex or to catch-up…n
Take your time to give comments / suggestion to the exercises.

Have fun and enjoy your archeryn Martin

Thanks Martin for all the work you are putting into this.

Recently, I've gone to a non-neutral stance. That is, my feet are open, but my shoulders are closed -- this puts a twist in my back that seems to help back tension -- at least, it provides a consistent follow-through without thinking. From this experience, I am starting to think that finding 'neutral' is only the start -- once you find 'neutral', in any aspect of the stance, you may want to go slightly to one side or other of it so that you always have a steady 'push'. For example, when sailing, you don't want to sail directly downwind (neutral) because it will move you all over -- you want to be at a slight angle to the wind so that you can consistently and smoothly 'push' against it. I bet that applies to many aspects of archery.
Looking forward to the week

ArcCaster,
it is a quite interesting comparison. As I am not too much into sailing (did only windsurfing long time ago - if that may count) I could only imagine that this is a similar physical situation as the "indifined" stability of a pyramid that balances on its top. In orther words - the balance of forces is within a quite narrow range of tolerance. Same appears to your stand. Speaking a little bit technical: your body is a no time in a complete stillstand - it is swinging or balancing permanently. (once you make the closed eye exercises you will notice that). The standing positions of your feet influence how big the amplitude of this swinging movement will be. This in turn will influence your "correction swing" that your bow arm has to fullfill. The secret is now to minimise the swinging movement and by this reaching a smaller amplitude on your bow arm swing. That automatically will guide you to more closed grouping..

Thanks Martin,n
I like the 'pyramid balancing on its top' comparison. How about one more.

When I was teaching my daughter to drive a car, I tried to correct her habit of 'oversteering'. That is, she continually overcorrected -- I believe it was because she was trying to 'balance on the tip of the pyramid'. I taught her to 'undercorrect' -- for example, on a curve, always 'feel' the resistance of the curve -- if you oversteer, you then have to correct by understeering, that is, to 'let go', and during that 'let go' time, you can't feel the curve.

So, just as in driving, where I always 'understeer' just a hair (that is, I am continually 'leaning into the curve', never standing perfectly upright), I like to 'lean into the bow's wish to swing' just a hair -- not much, just enough that I am not balancing on the tip of the pyramid.
Does this make sense?

Martin, another comment -- that first week, you sent us through a repetitive series of examining our shot sequence, and refining our understanding of it. The difference between what you had us do and what I've done before was the number of repetitions and checking and re-checking -- the repetitions make a difference!n
Anyway -- that exercise opened my eyes to some possibilities which I am still exploring -- making it difficult to move on through week 2.

I am a victim of the success of your first week! Arghhh!