About 2 years ago I inadvertently ended up on the ground with a horse on top of me and messed up my shoulder. Dr said I had a torn rotator cuff and a smashed whatever it was inside the joint. That had caused a small bone spur to grow. As much as it would heal on it's own I found I could shoot, but not enough to practice. So, not willing to hunt without being able to practice all the time I hung up the bow and built a flintlock.

3 months ago I was all set to get the surgery to fix the shoulder and decided to get a second opinion. The second dr said to try some excercises first to try to built the muscles in my chest and back up to help relieve some of the pressure on the shoulder.  2 months later it seems I'm able to shoot regularly without surgery. I can't do any shoulder exercises with weights or anything, but I've used my homemade bow exerciser thing and shot about a dozen arrows a day for the last 5 days and there's no pain. I'm shooting a 58 @ 28 dryad but I pull about 29 1/2.

So, for those of you who have gone way down in draw weight or stopped with the bow all together, you might want to try asking your dr about some type of therapy in lieu of surgery. It seems to have helped me.


Your mileage may vary.

Congrats,from someone that has had too many surgerys I'm glad to see that therapy worked for you.

I had a bone spur in my left AC shoulder joint that had been growing for at least 10 years. No kind of therapy or exercises was going to keep the bone spur from not growing. Finally, the pain got so bad I had to see an orthopedic surgeon and he surgically removed the bone spur. It wasn't done laproscopicaly either. It was done with a 3" long slice to open me up. With physicaly therapy, it was 7 months after surgery before I could shoot my bow without any discomfort and I have full range of use of the shoulder without any complications.

On a sidenote, if you've got a torn rotator cuff, the exercises help in the short term, but those exercises are just masking the problem. A torn rotator cuff won't heal properly on it's own no matter what exercises you do. You're just avoiding the inevitable. Somewhere down the road, you'll inadvertently do something to your damaged shoulder and that torn rotator cuff will tear some more with greater damage and then you'll wish you had the surgery done sooner. The greater the damage, the longer it takes the shoulder to heal after surgery.

Food for thought.

Glad to see it worked for you.  

I'm going thru physical therapy right now for shoulder problems and also a pinched nerve in my neck.  It has only been a week, but I have hope I will be back to normal as long as I keep up my end of the bargain.

QuoteOriginally posted by Night Wing:
I had a bone spur in my left AC shoulder joint that had been growing for at least 10 years. No kind of therapy or exercises was going to keep the bone spur from not growing. Finally, the pain got so bad I had to see an orthopedic surgeon and he surgically removed the bone spur. It wasn't done laproscopicaly either. It was done with a 3" long slice to open me up. With physicaly therapy, it was 7 months after surgery before I could shoot my bow without any discomfort and I have full range of use of the shoulder without any complications.

On a sidenote, if you've got a torn rotator cuff, the exercises help in the short term, but those exercises are just masking the problem. A torn rotator cuff won't heal properly on it's own no matter what exercises you do. You're just avoiding the inevitable. Somewhere down the road, you'll inadvertently do something to your damaged shoulder and that torn rotator cuff will tear some more with greater damage and then you'll wish you had the surgery done sooner. The greater the damage, the longer it takes the shoulder to heal after surgery.

Food for thought.

I pretty much figured that.  I will almost certainly get it fixed next year. I just have wayy too much going on right now to be unable to work properly.

I had a spur removed from my shoulder a couple years ago. Arthroscopic surgery, hurt like hell for a few days, but I was back shooting with no pain in 2 months. The spurs will slowly cause damage to the muscle groups  that make up the rotator cuff, and if left untreated will result in more damage. Motrin, PT and cortisone injections will neer make a bone spur go away.

Im currently doing PT following elbow surgery to clean up and repair tendon damage from cronic tendonitis. it hasnt been fun, but its feeling a lot better, and Ive even shot a few arrows without any problems.

Deciding to have surgery is a tough call,I went to a sports medicine specialist for my elbow,and was well worth it.