teenage archery philosophy

[recurveboy]

I feel that it is almost necissary for archers to be in shape. i am myself but i am only 17, 5'6'' and 118lbs. I think the key muscles to keep strong when shooting a bow are your back/shoulder muscles which do the actual pulling when drawing a bow, and forearm which also aide in the pull of the bow string. Its not hard to hit the gym and workout. although most archers probably dont live in a suburban surrounding like i do, those of you (like my dad) who live in the middle of nowhere could look into buying small home-workout items like dumbells, a benchset, and other muscle toning tools. i make it to the gym at least twice a week and concentrate on those key drawing muscles. I know that modern recurves are extremely light weight wether wood or aluminum they often dont come over 2.7lbs, 2lbs-compared to the 40-65lb draw weight creates alot of stress on the bow arm, making it difficult anchor down ot hold the string. at least it does for me, a way you can aid this is to practice at home with surgical or latex tubing and do drills holding the stressed tubing in a bow drawing manor as long as possible. Happy holidays

[Jeff Roark]

have to agree with you young man. Here is some video clips of my home set-up. I only lift weights twice per week, one lower body day and one upper body day, although I do chinups one both days. I have been buying this stuff since I was younger than you and now at 35 it still serves me well.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Sambalifter#p/u

http://www.youtube.com/user/Sambalifter#p/u/6/pjbMBntfg1M

[Brad B]

For me dumbells is all I need. I can do a full body workout with them, but I don't do lower body very often anymore. Now I mostly do front raises (always with thumbs pointing up, NEVER with the back of the hand pointing up, cost me a good rotator cuff to find out why) side raises, bent over rows, curls, tricep presses and bench presses. As I've gotten older I have found that it's harder to remain flexible, so I've backed off on any heavy weights and just do high reps of light weights. One other thing I've noticed as I have aged, my metabolism has slowed down. I've always had muscle mass, but mainly now I've got a case of fataxx.

[cabinboy16]

i live in the middle of nowhere 6'3" weigh nearly 300lb. i dont have a work schedule but we had our farm logged a couple of years ago so we cut the tops up for firewood to burn ourselves and to sell. my dad is gettin sore in the arms b/c he's done it for so long, and i end up throwin and splittin while he cuts. i've thrown wood since i was 5-6 and splittin since i was 10-11. throwin 2-10 lb chunks over & over is a good work out for the forearms, plus swingin an 8lb splittin mal works out the back & shoulders. this works for me, no money spent, some money gained, & a workout
:2cents: