I hurt my shoulder about 2 years ago - Doc said tentinitis- and after shooting this weekend at our local 3-d shoot it is sore again. Athough it has never been the same since I hurt it cleaning and loading a moose, it has been much better then it is now.

Question: Does anyone know of any specific exercises or any natural treatments that may help with this specific problem. I am looking for a lighter bow but love my current chekmate and want to be able to keep shooting it.

Thanks
Eric

I'd suggest getting your doc to send you to a physical therapist. Doing the wrong excercises for your problem, or even doing the right exercises the wrong way, could do more to hurt you than help. The PT can prescribe exactly what you need and teach you how to do the exercises correctly.

As for treatments, hot/cold contrast treatments do wonders. Start with ice for 10 minutes, heat pad for 10 minutes, ice for 10 minutes, heat for 10 minutes and ice for 15 minutes. Something about the heat/ice constrast that opens up the blood vessels in the affected area and lets the blood carry out the metabolic wastes of the damaged tissues to speed healing. You can vary the number of contrasts you do, but always start and finish with ice.

Take vitamin supplements, especially heavy on anti-oxidants, glucosamine/chondroitin, and fish oil capsules. It's not natural, but the nsaids like naproxin sodium (Naprosyn) and ibuprofen (Advil) help reduce pain, inflammation and swelling. With all the arthritis I've got, I practically live on Advil.

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You may want to also consider asking you primary physician for a referral to an orthopedic surgeon to further investigate the cause of the pain. It could be something as simple as tendonitis, but then it could also be a rotator cuff injury or arthritis.

I've injured my rotator cuff before, (luckily not in my draw arm) it took a long time to heal (probably because I didn't really give it a chance to heal) and tends to get sore again fairly easily. Definitely see your doctor to get the proper referrals.

If you go through the older back issues of TBM, I believe it was Don Thomas who did an article on how to prevent it. And also some things you can do to help. I also think it might have been split into a couple different articles, not nessicarly all done by Don.

Thanks guys, I remember reading that article that D. Thomas wrote. I will have to get a Doc to look at it again as I am not sure of the quality of the first opinion. I have no idea how they can look at something for 1 minute and make an accurate diagnoses. I was taking the glucosimin for a bum knee (sounds like I am getting old) and ran out just last week, coincidently that is when my shoulder started acting up again.


Thanks again
Eric

That's all better advice than this, but if you want to give it a try, and it doesn't hurt, give it a go:

Do push-ups. It's pretty close to the reverse exercise to drawing a bow. You don't have to do a lot. Say do three, and shoot your bow once or twice, and give it two days, then try again. This is the miracle cure for ballancing your shoulder, but it won't cure serious problems, or probably many minor things that aren't specificaly caused by shooting a bow (your moose loading example).

Also, if you are in any doubt about form, take a shooting class, and make sure you are doing everything correctly, and aren't overbowed. I would even take a "compound" course say the PSE course. I think they are interested in all sorts of shooters.

Also, get a very light rubber scarf thing, or surgical tube, and do a bunch of warm-up exercises before shooting. Take it into the woods with you on stand, and if you don't see an animal coming, do a few warm-ups. Do them on the line. The Olympic shooters do this all the time to keep everything warmed up. Shooting a bow puts very high stress on a set of muscles most of us hardly use. A classic situation requiring warm-up.