overdrawing?

[Ray Johnson]

What are the effects of drawing too far back? What type of problems will that cause?

[moebow]

Depends on your definition of "overdrawing."  Most commonly that is caused by a total arm draw technique.  It would take you out of back tension, cause poor alignment of the bones and probably cause a poor release.  Need to see what you mean by overdrawing and how you are shooting to help much.

Arne

[Ray Johnson]

Moebow, I watched a video of me shooting and my elbow is sky high for one thing. I watched it carefully and I could see that I sort of sink back into anchor after reaching full draw. My elbow rises up as I sink. Sink might not even be the right term. I can't post a video from my phone to this site so you can't see what I'm doing. I just know that it's a problem. I just got in from shooting and tried not to stretch out so far.Seemed to work well so far.

[moebow]

Yes, sinking forward to anchor is not good.  Draw as far back as your anchor then set facial references.  Try to never let the string hand move forward towards the target.

Arne

[sveltri]

I think I've been doing the exact same thing.  Ray, when you miss is it a consistent miss?  For me its generally left which I attribute to a high elbow causing a bad release, where my hand flies away from my face.  Right misses I can pretty easily attribute to a collapse.  Arne, will trying to lower the draw elbow help transfer to increased back tension or vice versa? Seems kinda like a chicken and egg question.  Thanks!

[moebow]

Many times this is caused by using too many, and generally not the right, muscles to draw the bow.  Trying to consciously place the elbow at a given place is also counter productive.  It sounds trite but try to relax the draw and only use muscles to move the upper arm and shoulder on the string side.  BICEPS especially need to be relaxed and NOT used.  IF!!! you do this, your string arm elbow will naturally be in the right place with no effort on your part.

Again, in general, if your hand pops out from your face at release, this indicates arm muscles and no back use.  Allowing the hand to move forward on the face kills any back tension you may have established and is not good.

No "chicken and egg" more like trying to kill the golden goose to get more gold eggs.

Arne