Inspired by Dons post and some mild soreness in my shoulder I'd like to know what exercises folks do to strenghthen/care for their shoulders.
Bonus round: what about shooting form is good or bad for shoulder health?
Thanks!
Chainsaw and handsaw wood, split wood, stack wood, shovel snow, toss haybales, lift feedsacks of cracked corn and scratch grain.
I'd be glad to set you up in a training program if you stop by.
Shooting the bow is my exercise. I just do some "windmills" and extension stretching ahead of time to loosen up my back and shoulder muscles.
First off just excercise shooting your bow,but if starts giving you any pain see a doctor before it gets to bad.
Daily lift weights (curls & military press w/dumbells) plus fix fence, feed horses, dig ditches, cut trees, spread dirt, etc. Weights isolate shoulder & back muscles important to shooting IMO. Also workout with my bow pulling the string with each hand for a certain length of time. Great answers Stumpkiller in every thread.
The big thing to check on FIRST! If you have some type of pain right now when pulling your bow, you have to fix it or it may turn into something much harder to deal with. Might be nothing, but might be something!
If it hurts, your doing something that is not going to make the condition go away. If available, get some help (doctor, therapist, etc.)
Lay off shooting for a week or so if you cant (or wont) see a doctor. Move your arm gently in all directions noting where it hurts. Keep as much movement going as possible without making it hurt during that week. If its minor, this week will give it time to heal. If you pull your bow back after that week and it hurts as much or more, get your butt in or your shooting days will be limited down the road. Don't make that mistake.
If a boxer hurts his hand, life stops till he gets that hand fixed. He doesn't keep punching to make it go away. You are an archer, if you want to stay one, be smart.
I Like to swim to keep the muscles toned.
I found out last year that overdrawing, rotating past a normal anchor spot is hard on the shoulder.
John,
My shoulder issue has been progressively getting worse since I was a teenager. I had one of the most wicked curve balls that you had ever seen when I played little league baseball. Of course, I moved up to the next level of play and played on through high school......still throwing that wicked "bender". Of course, it was iced after every pitching session, but I am positive that the damage was being done. After high school, I went to work in a factory and ran a large stamping press, which required a lot of both pushing and pulling on heavy dies while setting up my press. I also kept on playing ball, but it was now softball. I began to notice that it really hurt to throw a ball overhead and went to throwing sidearm, which didn't hurt my shoulder or arm nearly as much.
I do remember having to get a steroid shot directly into my shoulder when I was about 14 or 15 years old.......which really eliminated the pain for the most part. I thought that things were good......and kept on abusing the shoulder. I have been shooting a bow since I was about 10 years old and it has NEVER hurt me to do so, up until yesterday morning.
I don't know what kind of pain that you are experiencing in your shoulder, but will do my best to describe the type of pain that I have intermittenly had for most of my life. It is mostly a dull ache, varying in strength. It hurts from my deltoid down my arm where the muscles attach to the bone by my bicep. As it has gotten worse, it hurts around towards my scapula (shoulder blade). It isn't a "pulsing" type pain......just a gradual increase in intensity up to the point that it is almost intolerable. I've tried heat, ice, and rest.....none of which gives very much, if any relief. I'm not a "pill taker" and do not take anything for relief, my wife thinks I'm crazy, and she may very well be right. When it starts hurting, the only thing that I have found to give me even a little bit of relief is to rub the deltoid down to my bicep and back around towards my scapula. I don't know what this does, if anything......but it at least makes me feel like I'm doing something to give some relief.
For the past month, it has been pretty much a steady ache......with periods of some pretty serious pain. I got another steroid shot down into the shoulder at the onset, but have gotten absolutely NO relief what-so-ever from that. There are several stretching exercises that a friend of mine whom is an orthopedic massage therapist gave me to do and up until a month or so ago they worked very well and kept the pain at bay. I can give you his contact info (he does frequent this site) if you PM me.
If it were me, I would go to my primary care physician and have him refer me for an MRI, which will show "where" the problem lies and perhaps with some stretching exercises you may eliminate the problem before it becomes anything major. I don't have any idea....for the life of me what I have done that caused the sudden "worsening" of the pain, but I can tell you for sure that I have had ENOUGH already. I want the problem fixed, and will do the necessary rehab to get back to life without pain. At this point, if someone told me that going out and pounding my head into a concrete block wall would make the pain go away......I'd give it a shot. I'm not a whiner and can take pain pretty well.......but it is kicking my butt.
I will follow the instructions given to me, and follow through with all of the physical therapy. I want to feel "normal" again.....I don't expect miracles, but want to be able to enjoy shooting my bow for years to come. I don't have or shoot anything that is more than the mid-50's at my draw-length and believe that this is very possible.
If the soreness that you have is truly in the muscle, it will go away in a day or two....and a sore muscle is more of a "burn" than anything else. A torn tendon however will NOT go away, and will only get worse with time. It amazes me the things that I am noticing NOW......that irritate this shoulder and it doesn't have to involve even having anything in my hand when I do it. I kinda think that there are some bone spurs that have been slowly irritating and tearing the tendon over time.....but what do I know. The Dr. should fill me in tomorrow, and I will report back. I wish you the best with your shoulder, and pray that it isn't something that requires more than some simple stretching exercises to fix. If you have any specific questions, don't hesitate to PM me and ask.
Winterhawk1960
Wow, thanks you guys.
QuoteOriginally posted by jfelkins:
Bonus round: what about shooting form is good or bad for shoulder health?
Thanks!
If you check on the "Shooters Forum", you will find several posts by Terry Green. He is adament about shoulder and bone on bone alignment. It not only makes a bow easier to draw and hold, but it eliminates any unnecessary stress on the shoulder joint.
The shoulder joint is, without a doubt the most unstable joint in the human body. It is truly held in alignment by several tendons. If anything "irritates" them, or eventually causes a tear in them the pain will continue to get worse and will NOT go away without surgery and the followup physical therapy.
As Terry says........"Alignment" is the key.
Winterhawk1960
I went though Physical Therapy for shoulder impingement last year. With winter setting in, the pain is coming back. I am doing stretches and will start using dumbells to work the shoulder. I still have my big rubber bands from therapy and will use them also. The big thing is to keep it loose and stretch the shoulder or it will lock up. I would see a doctor also.
grab 2 soup cans (full ones :D ), hold them in front of your face so you are looking at finger tips. slowly raise them to full extension while rotating the hands 180deg then back down to looking at tips.....lather, rinse and repeat (slowly with good form till tired). When finished open soup cans, heat and enjoy! I was told that our shoulders have less blood vessels than most other major muscle groups so warm up and strength training are very important and this exercise moves them through full range with little stress.
John, I just tried this with peanut butter instead of soup. I like chunky the best!
Never get a job working on an oil rig !! I have for the past 25 years and my right shoulder is ruined ! 3 operations and it is still messed up. Ice at night can go along way in helping reduce the pain, it's the only thing that has kept my left one functional. Get a good doctor also, mine was a Quack !!!
indian clubs fantastic for rehab and strenghtcheck it out on the web
Get to the Dr. If the pain is bad enough to ask about it then go get it checked. I ignored my pain as I have a high pain tolerance & it ended up costing me major shoulder surgery back in Dec 08. The bones in the end of my shoulder were all busted up & collapsed. I had tendinitis in my rotator cuff & a torn Labrum from continued shooting. I could not take the pain anymore without complaining to my wife. She knew if it was that bad that she better call the MD for me. MRI revealed the damage I talked about. Surgery was the only answer. So glad I had it done. After when I shot my bows 60# or more I had a lot of pain. Sold them so I wasn't tempted. I shoot mid to low 50s with no pain or issues at all. Don't be dumb like me & wait while you do more damage.
Good luck.
jf, I would heed the advice given to see a Doc. 2yrs. ago I started getting pain in my left shoulder that would sometimes wake me up. The Doc said it was arthritis in both shoulders and elbows and the only thing would be medication. I tried it but did not like the side effects and discussed it again. I stopped the pills and got rid of my two friends, a54# and 50# bow and decided to drop the weight. I currently shoot in the upper 30#s but I am doing one thing I enjoy most. Shooting a bow!
I use exercise bands. Not too heavy and a focus on reps.
Haven't been able to shoot in about 4 years.Had rotator cuff & bone spur surgery in June.Got rid of my 61# bow & am now waiting on my new 45#.Advice....get your shoulder checked out.
Good luck.
Shooting a bow is fun and it's easy to fall into "over doing it".
Take some days off each week from shooting and shoulder exercises.
Increase the quality of your practice sessions and decrease the quantity.
Get one of those neoprene shoulder-ice wraps that baseball pitchers use after a game. For me it's more effective than meds after a shooting or lifting session.
Since i can only shoot every 3 months, i have to workout on a daily basis to shoot my 60#plus bows. Go to these websites for good information on all types of routines: www.crossfit.com, (http://www.crossfit.com,)
www.sealfit.com (http://www.sealfit.com)
www.t-muscle.com. (http://www.t-muscle.com.) this a "meathead site" but they have cutting edge trainers who post articles on training, currently on the home page, there is a "shoulder article" that shows a simple routine that anyone can do at home, especially the "band streches" i use bands everyday, they fold up and store easily in my day pack. Good Luck
Jeff,
May be hard to do, but it is the off season right now so why not get to the bottom of what is wrong now ?
Take two full weeks off shooting or any other thing you are doing that would involve the shoulder as much as you can. Take as much Aleve as you can take according to instructions, drink plenty of water, 8-9 hrs sleep, and ICE three times a day for 30 minutes. The most important of all this is the Aleve and ICE. I was in terrible pain for a year and finally went to my PT friend. He chewed me out real good and made me promise to do EXCACTLY what I just told you or he would not help me again, only refer me to a surgeon once I finished wrecking my shoulder !
I had severe bicep tendonitis. The bicep and shoulder tendons lay side by side in the joint area and once they become inflammed it is very hard to get them to heal and get the inflammation totally out. This is what the ICE and Aleve do together. The rest keeps the inflammed tendons from feeding on themselves. The more you rub those swollen, inflammed tendons together the worse they get exponentially. The just get bigger and bigger forcing them together even more.
Long story short, after one week of ICE, Aleve and total resting of the joint I was amazed at how much better I was. Make sure you get a good large ice bag and move it around every 10 minutes or so to get all around the joint. As I got back into shooting if I felt pain again I would ICE for a few days and take an extra day off shooting to rest and recover the joint. Problem free to this day ! I know to listen to my PT and my body now and not ignore it. I also know what to do and how to avoid surgery.
If after 2-3 weeks of the above you are not 100 % feeling better, best get yourself to a doc and MRI if it is that bad. Not a muscle or tendon inflammation, maybe worse. JMHO
Too many archers have shoulder problems. I'm one of them. Several things have helped in addition to the good info above:
1) bow pullbacks on your offside
2) exercises, especially rows and inverted pushups, on both sides equally. There have been a few good articles in TBM and one on the Instinctive Archer CD
3) shoulder stretches. I didn't get better until I started doing deadhangs from a pullup bar using full body weight
4) a commitment to rotator cuff exercises