My wife Marcia and I are planning on hunting elk in Colorado this fall. My 5th trip , her first. We are trying to get her up to 50 lbs in bow weight. She is now shooting 40 lbs. I am a firm believer to buid up you have to shoot but time and career can get in the way.
First question: Any suggestions how to accelerate the process ie: archery specific weight training and exercises?
Second question: There is a company selling a rubber tube based training tool. Does anyone know the company name, web address...?
Thanks for all your help,
John
Bowfit, do a Google search and it will come up.
Go to bowfit.com It shows the exerciser and the training video info. I believe Cabelas sells it. Duane
Resistance cords are sold or suggested to use with most fitness/pilates videos sold today.
Freebay have them very reasonable prices. Around $10 to $15.
Remeber it's not just arm strength but body strength.
Here is Bowfit's website.
http://bowfit.com/index.html
John where most men want tha space to hunt by ourselves, being that ya done a few times before, ya a lucky man to have a wife hunting with ya this time.
I think the bowfit is a good idea. I have one, but now the bow I shoot is heavier than the bowfit, so it doesn't do that much good. :)
Even if you don't have time to shoot, get the bow out and do some draw and hold exercises. When I do this, I try to draw a bit past normal, and hold for a few seconds. I use a shaft with a clothespin on it set at about an inch past my normal draw. Draw until the pin touches my left hand. Hold, count, let down slowly and with control. A little bit is better than nothing. Pull ups and push ups are good exercises also.
An important part is setting goals. You have an end goal set - 50# by elk season. Set some milestone goals along the way, to keep you moving and prevent procrastination. A few years ago I used this to get myself to save money toward hunting. I used to have a whiteboard calendar and drew a deer on one end of it. I drew a little stick figure hunter on the other end - far away from the deer. In the space between I wrote my milestone goals at regular intervals: $100, $300, etc. Each time I achieved one of those milestones, I erased the stick figure hunter and redrew her at that spot. It's a funny, very visual way of "seeing" yourself getting closer to your goal, like stalking a deer. Sometimes you look at the calendar, and you think "wow, I'm still a long way from that deer!" and for me anyway, that was motivating.
Hope this helps, good luck. :)
Tamure those are some good tips.
Tamure is a very strong women. she has bigger arms muscles then me. ;) and she out shoot ever NV trad guy I know. :)