I hope someone can help me.

[Eugene Slagle]

I came back to traditional recurve after 25 years of shooting compounds & have trained myself to shoot well enough for hunting & possibly target archery using a recurve but one of the personal irritations to myself on my shooting is my natural bent bow arm, no matter what I do or the bow weight I tend to have this bent arm & when someone snaps a picture or there is video of me I get irritated at myself because of it especially when I see others with beautiful form.

Now not to say my shooting is terrible I can keep a decent 220+ average on the 3D course with 95% of low or no scoring shots being over or under the target & I can usually go through a 30 target 3D & a Full 28 target field round with just marginal fatigue but I'm sure I can improve on myself & this is where y-all can help that may have had this malady.

I have 2 pictures here showing me at full draw with 2 different bows of different weights.

This is of me shooting a 34# @ 28" 64" Hoyt Nexus.
 

This is of me shooting my 52# @ 28" 60" Zona T/D.
 

Both pictures show the same amount of bend in my elbow but the pocket of my elbow is 90* of the risor, I would like to know of some excercise that I could try or something to improve my shooting form in this respect of my bow arm.

Please help.

[AllenR]

Some of us simply can't straighten our arms completely. Mine isn't as bad as yours, but it's just the way that I'm built. I tried for a while to straighten it since the straight arm is a bit more repeatable, but almost injured my elbow.  I even had to lay off of shooting for a week.

If you are getting consistent draw length on every shot, don't worry about it.  There are some advantages to a slightly bent arm.  

In fact you are probably better off focusing on absolutely consistent draw length than on worrying about your arm.  However, if you really want to learn to shoot with it straighter, the blank bale is likely the place to do it.  Just get up close and focus your mind completely on keeping your bow arm straight for a few thousand arrows.  Then when you think you have it, put up a big target and shoot it at 5 yards.  If you don't have any problems with that, step back a couple of yards.  Continue that until you hit about 30 yards and then begin reducing the size of the target.  

Hope this helps,
Allen

[Terry Green]

Click Below....and scroll down to the stick drawings below the clock....I think you will find some answers there if you compare them to your pics...

   Proper Alignment Info...

[Eugene Slagle]

Yeah when I try to lock the elbow & video myself at that moment I still end up with the slight bend but a hurt elbow, my draw is consistent though where I had all my arrows marked once & videoed & they all fell within I would say 1/4" of each other of 12 arrows.

Terry:
With the first page, it really looks like I'm doing it wrong but I do not have a picture of me shooting from above cept 1.
How would I try to correct that?

 

[cbCrow]

Eugene, just an observasion, you almosy appear to me like you are shootin a compound. You look upright and hardly have any cant in your bow. When my shoulder and wrist got injured I had the same problem. To overcome it and to keep pain out my elbow I canted the bow more, and opened up my stance abd it helped to rotate elbow up to alignment for me.

[TRAD900]

Charles is right ,from what I can tell your stance is way open and it almost looks like your back is arched.close your stance a little and get more behind the bow.

[RocketDog]

Many archers have a slight bend in their bow arm.  As well as you are shooting, why would you be concerned about a bent elbow?  The goal of good form is consistency.  If you have personalized your form but remain consistent, you have reached the goal.

From one perspective, a bent elbow is a good thing.  Putting resistance on a fully straightened elbow risks damage to tendons or ligaments which can become a serious problem.

Keep shooting good!

[S.C. Hunter]

A bent arm is not so bad I have seen others shoot very well this way. I think the consistant draw is more important as mentioned by another here. I also believe you form was more for the compound shooter. The only other thing I can think of to help if you want to straighten your arm is to try to push out more with the heel of your hand.

[s_mcflurry]

I agree with the last two posts.  You said it yourself: 'natural bent bow arm'.  We're all built differently and a straight bow arm may not be what your body requires.  If a bent bow arm still allows you to pull comfortably and consistently (which seems to be the case as evident by your scores) I'd say it's one less thing to worry about your form...and we all could use that, couldn't we?    

I'd actually be worried if you had the opposite problem: a locked elbow.  A locked elbow usually means a raised bow shoulder which causes stress in that area.  A bent bow arm, though, means the shoulder is down and likely to be in good alignment.

[Whump]

Whump SEz: As long as your draw length is consistent I don't see what difference it makes. The only reason for locking the arm out is to keep your draw hand a repeatable distance from your face and anchor point.Looking at your photos it looks like you shoot with a heal down palm position and that puts a natural bend in your arm. That is a longbow mans trick form the old daze to keep the string from hitting the arm. Locking the elbow out will also rotate your arm inward and if you shoot without an arm guard you will figure out where the Indians war cry came from. "If you want to straighten your arm  some shoot with a straight wrist and not a heal down palm position."  If you are shooting well with a consistent and repeatable draw, don't change anything.  Go shoot 2 deer and call me in the morning. Hunt safe.

I'm think'n you don't have an arm or elbow problem.  I can't tell for sure from the picture, but it looks to me like your left shoulder is too low.  If that's the case all you need to do is rotate your shoulder clock-wise until you come to alignment.  

If that's the case, you'll have to keep it in mind on every shot until it feels right.  

I did the opposite... I have to rotate my shoulder out "every" time.

[Ssamac]

Byron Ferguson cautions against having a locked elbow in his book/video "Becoming the Arrow"
Can lead to some issues down the road.

I notice that your form with the 34# bow looks better than with the 52# bow. Maybe stick with the 34# bow until you get your form just right.

Good luck
sam

[Randal Blanchette]

Just a quick question. Do you have any posture problems? The reason I ask is because this is an issue with a bunch of people and directly impact a whole bucket full of things to include shooting form.

My advice is to find a bone doc and get a check up to see for yourself if this is the case before you start making any radical changes. There is a very good reason that top professionals in their sports seek out sports trainers to see what areas are hindering their game.

[Eugene Slagle]

Well my draw length is consistent, but I'll look into my shoulder.

As far as my bones are concerned, I did have a M.C. accident in 91' which broke my Left Radius & dislocated my wrist.
The Steel plate is still in there from the surgery & my wrist is slightly off compared to my right one, just never gave it much thought because other than how it looks it doesn't bother me.

[mahantango]

Looks to me like you need to rotate your left shoulder like Jim said. I'll bet if you bent your left arm, the bow would smack you on top of your head. Try rolling your left shoulder so that when you bend your elbow, the forearm moves horizontally across your chest. Also, your draw-arm elbow looks way high. Not a very strong shoulder position, and puts some weird pressure on the string.

[Big Fisherman]

May-be rotate your right hand toward your chin...Am wondering if the string is getting twisted a little bit.