“If you are 50 or older, and you get up in the morning without anything hurting, check your pulse; you might be dead”
Anonymous
Warning:
This is mostly an old guy complaining, but hopefully this story can convince an archer or two to take care of their shoulders before they become a problem.
The situation:
About to order my first traditional bow, wondering about draw weight, I figured that some extra strength exercising couldn’t hurt. I had been shooting a low-40s self-made longbow for a while without ill effect. Just the odd soreness in the bow shoulder joint, which I tried to manage by not overusing it.
What happened:
I increased the frequency and intensity of the pull-up work-outs, resulting in a good old case of inflammation of the bicep tendon (in the shoulder), and more soreness in the top of the joint.
How it got better:
It didn’t at first. Two courses of anti-inflammatory drugs and resting the shoulder did absolutely nothing. An ultra-sound and X-ray investigation with contrast fluid in the joint showed fluid in the bursa, but no damage to the rotator cuff. So good news, no real damage, but unfortunately also no clear path forward. Doc kinda shrugged and mumbled something about age. I dropped my expectations and instead of ordering 55# I ordered 47# limbs, and prayed that I hadn’t just purchased a very expensive walking stick. I googled “shoulder exercises”, picked some that seemed to make sense, and exercised for a few weeks, with no effect.
In December I started physiotherapy. Their assessment was swift. Very bad posture, combined with a desk job, made that the tendon in the shoulder was subject to constant rubbing, and the extra exercising just sent it on a downward course. Their suggestion was regular visits for ultrasound, some manual stimulation of the tendon, use of suction cups, needles, etc. combined with posture-improving and shoulder-strengthening exercises. This was going to take 2-3 months, they figured.
Very slowly the tendon started responding to the treatments. It was an up-and-down roller coaster with good days and bad days. One unhappy afternoon I was feeling strong, and added 3 and 4 lbs weight to a certain exercise, figuring that I needed to get stronger quickly to be able to shoot my new bow that was to arrive shortly. Unfortunately this caused my shoulder to hurt like never before, and a miserable week followed until my next physiotherapy visit.
My new bow just sat there while I went back through a daily series of exercises to strengthen the upper back and shoulders, and some lightweight stretchy band exercises to keep stimulating the tendon. I started shooting my old bow once or twice a week, and managed maybe half a dozen arrows at a time before the shoulder started hurting. Of course I overdid it a time or two, and punishment was swift and painful. It was a constant balancing act between common sense telling me to take it slow, and my desire to shoot the new bow.
Things gradually started turning around towards the end of April. I managed more arrows per session, and the result was more a nagging feeling of tiredness instead of the sharper pain of tendonitis. The soreness in the joint remained however. The physiotherapist mentioned the A-word (arthritis).
We threw in a few more treatments for good measure and kept increasing the workload of exercises, including some involving weights. It seemed to work! Mid-May we parted ways, with the strong recommendations ringing in my ears of continuing the exercising and increasing the workload SLOWLY.
Depending on the exercise, I grab weights between 7 and 12 lbs now, where I was using 30lbs weights before. I haven’t done a pull-up since October. A dozen arrows from the 47# bow is all it takes for the bow arm to start shaking during practice. But the good news is, that the tendonitis is all but gone, and the last week or two the soreness in the joint seems to be diminishing. There is hope.
What is the lesson:
Don’t let it come this far! If you have a mostly sedentary occupation, and you are hunched over your keyboard for most of the day, take stock. What is your posture like? How flexible are you in the shoulders? What are you doing to keep your back and shoulder muscles strong, and keep full range of motion? The sports physiotherapist told me that our ability to recover from injuries drops sharply after age 30. It is a lot easier to maintain your strength and flexibility than it is to get back after you lost it. Add an injury, and things get worse.
It took me from October till the end of May to get back to the point where I can shoot the bow on consecutive days. Don’t let it to that point. Google “shoulder exercises for archery” and “full range of motion exercises shoulder”. Focus on getting full range of motion first, before strengthening. If you can’t find anything that strikes a cord, contact me, and I will try to explain the exercises that the therapist had me do.
Stay healthy!
FD