Archery Strong offers archery-specific strength training and corrective exercises that are designed to relieve pain, prevent injury, and maximize the physical working parts of the archer. This training system utilizes shoulder, back, and core exercises focused on improving mobility, stability, stamina, strength, and control of the upper body. Our goal is to make your joints and tissues injury-proof, strong, and well-functioning so that you can get the most out of your shooting and enjoy your archery journey.

Archery Stronger Shoulders is a training system that progresses from foundational work to more complex, challenging work. This system is laid out in weekly progressions. A progression is a set of 5 exercises that you work on throughout the week. In the training videos, I will lead you through the exercises and provide coaching cues while you focus on correctly executing the exercises. You will complete the progression 3 times before moving on to the next progression, in order to 

• allow time and repetition of the exercises to cause change in the shoulder on a physiological level
• provide yourself with multiple opportunities to become proficient with each movement pattern, position, engagement, etc. before moving to a more complex, challenging movement

The 5 Exercises each week:

1. A Core Exercise- building a stable core with control to create a solid foundation for your shoulder girdle. 
2. A Shoulder Mobility Exercise- opening range of motion and creating flexibility in the shoulder so that we have sufficient movement for archery.
3. A Back Exercise- stabilizing the foundation for the shoulder and improving the means of movement for the arm; we need the musculature to be strong, stable, and controllable.
4. A Rotator Cuff Exercise- a crucial component for movement, strength, and stability in the ball and socket joint that needs to be equipped and prepared to handle the stresses and demands of shooting.
5. An Upper Body Strength or Stability Exercise- foundational strength and stability of the upper body and shoulders

3 Keys to Success:

1. Quality of the Exercise- focus strongly on the details of each exercise so that you perfect form and maximize the benefits of the exercise
2. Consistency- for the best impact on your shoulders, your shoulders need to see this training on a consistent basis. Ideally, this training will be completed 3-4 days a week. We need to avoid large breaks and bouncing in and out of doing this work. 
3. Intensity- this will look different for everyone. The golden rule: these exercises should be challenging but not to the extent that it compromises form. Adjust intensity by changing the resistance level of your band, the weight of your dumbbell, the amount of reps, or by taking more or less rest. You are in charge of adjusting the intensity. 

Required Equipment:

My goal is to help as many people as I can become well-functioning, injury-proof archers. To do so, this training system needs to be accessible to as many people as possible. Therefore, I've designed this training system to utilize as little equipment as possible.

• Your body weight
• A set of light dumbbells (typically between 3-10 lbs.)
• Bands of varying resistance (I recommend therabands)