Help Marcia go up in bow weight

[John McCreary]

My wife Marcia and I are planning on hunting elk in Colorado this fall. My 5th trip , her first. We are trying to get her up to 50 lbs in bow weight. She is now shooting 40 lbs. I am a firm believer to buid up you have to shoot but time and career can get in the way.
First question: Any suggestions how to accelerate the process ie: archery specific weight training and exercises?
Second question: There is a company selling a rubber tube based training tool. Does anyone know the company name, web address...?

Thanks for all your help,

 John

[vermonster13]

Bowfit, do a Google search and it will come up.

[dagwood64]

Go to bowfit.com It shows the exerciser and the training video info. I believe Cabelas sells it. Duane

[Kingstaken]

Resistance cords are sold or suggested to use with most fitness/pilates videos sold today.
Freebay have them very reasonable prices. Around $10 to $15.
Remeber it's not just arm strength but body strength.
Here is Bowfit's website.
 http://bowfit.com/index.html

John where most men want tha space to hunt by ourselves, being that ya done a few times before, ya a lucky man to have a wife hunting with ya this time.

[tamure]

I think the bowfit is a good idea. I have one, but now the bow I shoot is heavier than the bowfit, so it doesn't do that much good.    

Even if you don't have time to shoot, get the bow  out and do some draw and hold exercises. When I do this, I try to draw a bit past normal, and hold for a few seconds. I use a shaft with a clothespin on it set at about an inch past my normal draw. Draw until the pin touches my left hand. Hold, count, let down slowly and with control. A little bit is better than nothing. Pull ups and push ups are good exercises also.

An important part is setting goals. You have an end goal set - 50# by elk season. Set some milestone goals along the way, to keep you moving and prevent procrastination. A few years ago I used this to get myself to save money toward hunting. I used to have a whiteboard calendar and drew a deer on one end of it. I drew a little stick figure hunter on the other end - far away from the deer. In the space between I wrote my milestone goals at regular intervals: $100, $300, etc. Each time I achieved one of those milestones, I erased the stick figure hunter and redrew her at that spot. It's a funny, very visual way of "seeing" yourself getting closer to your goal, like stalking a deer. Sometimes you look at the calendar, and you think "wow, I'm still a long way from that deer!" and for me anyway, that was motivating.

Hope this helps, good luck.  

[xia_emperor]

Tamure those are some good tips.

Tamure is a very strong women. she has bigger arms muscles then me.     and she out shoot ever NV trad guy I know.