Archery loads the two hands in opposite directions, and almost every injury in the sport belongs clearly to one or the other.
- The drawing hand takes tension through three fingers.
- The bow hand takes compression through the heel of the palm.
Neither is a grip in the ordinary sense.
The drawing hand
- Finger pressure from the string concentrated at the first joint of the index, middle and ring fingers. A tab or glove spreads it; a badly fitted one does not
- Repeated tension through the flexor tendons at draw weight, dozens to hundreds of times per session
- Thumb loading in thumb-draw styles, which puts sustained high force through a single joint
What turns up: aching at the base of the fingers, joint soreness at the string fingers, and sometimes numbness along the sides of those fingers from repeated pressure on the small digital nerves. A ring that pinches under the tab makes that worse.
The bow hand
- Compression through the heel of the palm, repeatedly, in exactly the spot where the ulnar nerve crosses the wrist — see Guyon’s canal syndrome if the ring and little fingers go numb
- Gripping the bow instead of letting it sit is the commonest technical fault and the commonest source of wrist pain. The bow hand should be relaxed with the pressure through the base of the thumb, not clamped
- Wrist position. A high, low or straight wrist changes where the load lands; whichever you use, it should be consistent and not at end range
If you are gripping the bow, you are also torquing it. Bad for the shot and bad for the wrist, which is a rare case of the coaching and the medical advice being identical.
The rest
- Inner elbow pain in the drawing arm: golfer’s elbow, from repeated loaded finger flexion — and it wants loading rather than rest
- Outer elbow pain in the bow arm: tennis elbow, from holding the bow out
- Forearm aching in long sessions: overuse, usually a volume jump
- String slap bruising on the inner forearm is a technique and armguard issue, not an injury as such
What to change
- Drop the draw weight if you are shooting high volume or your form breaks down late in a session. Volume at a manageable weight beats a heavy bow you can only handle fresh
- Get the tab or glove fitted properly, and replace it when the leather compresses
- Use a sling so the bow hand can stay genuinely relaxed
- Build arrow counts gradually, especially before a competition block. Most archery injuries follow a jump in volume, not a single bad shot
- Break every twenty to thirty minutes in long practice
Get it assessed if
- Numbness in any fingers that persists after shooting
- A finger joint that stays swollen between sessions
- Elbow pain present before you start
- A finger that catches or will not fully straighten
- Six weeks of lower draw weight and reduced volume with no change
The draw is tension, the bow hand is pressure. Almost everything in this sport sorts itself once you know which one you are feeling.
Every article on this site is written using the Closing Window Method: name the window your condition runs on, find where you are in it, and act while it’s still open.