Five Tips for Perfect Archery Practice

If you haven’t gone out to practice your shot recently, here are five excellent tips for perfect practice. A quote comes to mind from the mouth of Bernie Pellerite, who said “practice does not make perfect… perfect practice makes perfect!”

Tip 1

Don’t try to practice with equipment that you think isn’t in perfect order or needs some sort of repair. Fix it first!

Make sure your bow is properly tuned (or as good as you think it needs to be).

Make sure your arrows are matched to the bow and are identical.

Make sure nothing is loose; silicone, rubber cement, or LocTite any nuts, bolts, and screws that aren’t frequently moved.

Tip 2

Don’t spend hours tuning and making adjustments only to find that something moves or fails at a tournament or in a tree stand at which point you’ll have no idea how to put it back exactly like it was before.

Measure how far the peep is from the nock point, etc. Write it down.

Tip 3

Keep a log book. Record the poundage of your bow, the axle to axle length, brace height, tiller measurement, nocking point position, the distance peep sight from the nocking point, arrow speed, arrow weight, draw length, etc.

When something stretches or breaks, setting up the bow again will be magnitudes easier. Mark down other critical adjustments with white-out if you don’t mind putting it on your bow. This includes limb bolts, arrow rests, peep sites, pin sights, and cam roll-over positions.

Top 4

Use an exercise band to warm up your muscles before pulling the bow. Warming up the right set of muscles before you are in action will keep you from getting off track immediately with a shaky sight picture.

Tip 5

Shoot the first few arrows at 5 or 10 yards at a blank bale. The idea here is to set up the subconscious and short-term muscle memory for a “first impression” of how the shot should feel and be executed. This enables concentration on perfect form and perfect feel and becomes easier for the subconscious to duplicate.

Try shooting a few shots with your eyes closed to further enhance the “memory”. If you are really serious, schedule a whole practice session once a week on an empty bale.

These tips should get you well onto your way to a Perfect Archery Practice session. Good Luck!