Bow Arm ???

[Marcus26]

Straight stiff vs straight relaxed is a strange one to me.
First up tension is bad, and the idea behind a straight arm is that it reduces tension. So straight and tense is bad.
If you have a slight bend, then it's a bend.
The bad thing about a bent arm is that it can lead to tendonitis. Tendonitis is where the tendon becomes inflamed from rubbing against the joint. Using the release aid correctly can lead to tendonitis because it will jerk the arm suddenly.
Any bend is still bend.

As for aiming straight is certainly better. In compound archery aiming is everything and there is 2 ways to achieve perfect aim.
1) Hold it still using brute strength
2) Hold it still using bone on bone contact.

I'm only a 75kg 5'10" tall dude, so when it comes to brute strength I am behind the 8 ball. I use to shoot with a bent arm and coincidently shot my best scores when I was weight training 3 days a week.
With straight I don't need that. I align my bow with my wrist with my forearm with my upper arm and through my shoulders. When I get it right I can hold rock still.

One of the advantages to a bent arm is that it counters incorrections in draw length. With a straight arm your draw length must be spot on. Even out by mm can lead to being unsteady. Bent arm is variable so it counters that. However straight arm and correct darw length is far superier than bent arm.

There are some great shooters out there with bent arms. However if you look at Cousins, Freeman, Hoyle and Elzinga they all shoot with straight arms and hold all the world records between them.

That's that one sorted then.

[JohnK]

Originally Posted by orius

I'm with Geoff and John on this one,i.e very slightly bent ,not locked straight.

Just wanted to clarify my comments:

I'm not advocating a slight bend. I'm just saying that with many archers there's a difference between locked out and straight. If I lock my arm, it hyperextends and the arm curves into the path of the string.

I find if I over extend my bow arm my bow shoulder goes up too. As Marcus says draw length needs to be mm acurate with a straight bow arm. I would experiment with increasing my draw length but my bow is maxed out at 28"

[Jerry Tee]

slight bend to avoid the locked elbow for me.

[Marcus26]

Originally Posted by JohnK

If I lock my arm, it hyperextends and the arm curves into the path of the string.

The solution there is changing your elbow orientation so that the arm bends in front of you, not above you. (hope that makes sense)
In fact turning your bow elbow that way makes it impossible to bend it while shooting and is also the strongest way to shoot.
If you look at Erika's elbow orientation here you can see how it is turned. There is no way in teh world she could now bend that arm and still shoot a bow.


You can see here that James Park does the same thing.



This can be difficult to do with a compound (I struggle with it) and only needs to be done by about 10degrees, but it removes the hyperextension and produces a stronger bow arm.

[JohnK]

That makes sense Marcus. It's sort of what I try to do anyway, but without actually locking the joint. I can hold the arm straight and rotate it, or lock it and rotate it. If I lock it, I get pain in the tendon attachments in the elbow.

This post is useless without pics. I'll try to get some taken of my bow arm so you can see what I mean.