form bow questions

[bear bowman]

I read a lot on here that guys will use a lighter poundage bow to work on their form. I was thinking about trying that out.
My question is, how much lighter than your hunting weight should you go? Will shooting the lighter bow a lot affect your muscle strength?

[McDave]

5-10# in my opinion.  5# if you feel you are in good control of your hunting bow, 10# if you are struggling at full draw with your hunting bow. It should be a weight you can hold at full draw for 10-15 seconds without starting to shake. I don't think it will affect your muscle strength much, because you will probably be shooting a lot more arrows than you normally do with your hunting bow, so it sort of evens out.  If you shoot the lightweight bow for a long time, your hunting bow will feel heavy, but it should feel normal again after shooting it for a week or so.

[dnurk]

I can attest to Dave says above.   I spent about 2 weeks shooting nothing but a 35# target bow (minty C riser Bear TD!!)  working on form.  It definitely helped me build some good muscle memory but when I jumped back to a 56# bow it felt REALLY heavy.   Took about a week shooting it to feel normal again.

Now I try to mix up days shooting one or the other and not go as long shooting just the target bow.

[jackdaw]

I agree with both your statements and the answers given as I do both. I shoot ..generally speaking...47#-51# on most bows. When working on form issues I generally revert to a 43# bow which is also 2" longer. It is very smooth and allows me to better focus on most aspects of my draw/shot cycle.  For even better practice I will even jump down to either my 37# target bow or my 31# pound target bow. One is 70" in length...the other is 66". The lighter bows really allow you to focus on form , but even more importantly release......the lighter bow makes it more difficult to get cleanly off the string.  The whole session is less tiring and will be most informative.  Just remember to run the whole shot through your mental checklist.  Even today I find myself getting sloppy occasionaly....the light bow recalibrates everything for me.......good question....good thread.....hope a lot of guys respond here....Jackdaw