Ricky hess

Does anyone know a good exercise to help me increase the poundage of my bow draw. I know their is a piece of exercise equipment for that specific purpose, to build up you pulling power, has anyone tried it and is it worth buying?

Rangeball

I was thinking along these lines in your other thread. Almost posted, but it seemed you wanted a quicker fix, and increasing your strength could take some time.

I' d recommend some basic push ups, taking your time and going slow, to really isolate and work the muscles. I' d also do some weighted rows to build your upper back musculature. Do you have any or access to free weights or machines? If not, take a strong broom handle or piece of pipe. Put it between two stable items, such as a chair or saw horses, something that will be off the floor about 3 feet or so. Lie on your back, and grasp the bar with your palms facing your head and with your hands shoulder width apart. Pull yourself up, concentrating on using your upper back muscles.

These two moves should give you additional upper body strength. Try to do 2-3 sets of 10 or as many as you can do, going slow and controlled, and allow yourself a day of rest in between and the weekends off.

Good Luck.

Ricky hess

Thanks again Rangeball. I am already looking into seeing how much new limbs will cost. I will use my backup bow the rest of this season but would still like to build up my upper body strength so I won' t be struggling with pulling my bow back in a cold tree stand. Yea I have access to weight machines and have been doing pulls and also pull downs for over a year but it doesn' t seem to help. I am 50 years old so I figure sooner or later I will have to reduce my bow weight down anyway. I will try the push ups I haven' t been doing those. Thanks again for your help

Krotalus

i think rows would be more beneficial than pull ups or pull downs.

you can do them seated with a machine or bent over with dumbbells or a barbell. Also curls and tricep extensions will help with arm strength.


if you have access to a gym spend some time with a trainer even take your bow with you and show them what the motion looks like and they can help tailor a program to fit your needs.


good luck

JeramyK

I started doing more upper body workouts about 4 months before the season. I added more sets of bench press, seated rows and pull downs. Also a few excercises with free weights. Like Rangeball mentioned the key is to focus on isolating the muscle groups. You don' t need to lift a ton of weight either. Just be consistant and keep good form.

Ricky hess

Thanks for all the advice.

MR. BOWTECH RD

Here are some more exercises you can do. Dumbell rows, barbell pullovers, cable pulldowns(single arm), lat pulldowns(palms toward and away from you), seated cable rows, and a reverse pull machine these work your back muscles.

For your arms and chest do incline, decline and flat bench(dumbbell and barbell), cable flies(flat bech & incline), dumbell pullovers, pec machine, cable crossovers. For arms, tricep cable pushdown, flat bench cable press, use a curl bar for tricep brainbusters, one arm reverse pushdowns single pulley, tricep pushdowns with rope, barbell curls, reverse cable curls. one arm dumbbell curls, alternating dumbbell hammer curls, preacher bench curls.

For shoulders, dumbbell side lateral raises, shrugs, reverse cable flies, bent over dumbbell raises, upright rows with cable. Do chest one day, skip a day, do arms then skip a day and do backs. Do 3-4 sets of each exercise with 12 down to 8 reps each set. First set 12 reps, 2nd set 10 reps, 3rd set 9 reps, 4th set 8 reps. Use whatever weight causes you to be at failure on your last rep of each set.

This is the routine me and my wife use. Maybe it will help you.

Kevin Strother

IMN23D

Ricky, I' m a little older than you are, and IMO the best way to build your archery muscles is to shoot archery. Use the other exercises to stay in shape, but shoot to build your archery muscles. It sounds like you have time to invest to go to the gym, use that time on the range. If you can' t make it to the range you can draw your bow and let it down while watching tv or in the basement. It don' t take long before your comfortable. If you want to increase...after you' ve shot for about 3 weeks (3 to 4 times per week) you can turn up your poundage about 1/2 to 1 pound. Shoot another week or two and increase it again. You will eventially get to where you want to go. By the way...you ever notice how many muscular guys that work out are not able to pull a 60 pound bow back? They don' t work their archery muscles.

okbwhtr

I have won a few national and one world title in bench press and have trained several atheletes. One excercise that works all parts for archery is front pulls with straight bar. Use straight bar with close grip in front. Pull the bar all the way up under the chin with elbows up high past ears and return down slowly. This excercise works back, traps, shoulders, forearms. I do agree that pulling bow while shooting will gain strength eventually also.

If you have access to lat machine it will work the back, use wide grip when working back.