Tabla de contenidos para Issue 160 en Bow International

Great Britain’s World Cup results in the past decade have not been spectacular, certainly compared with the usual peers. GBR had not taken a compound women’s gold medal since 2010, when Nicky Hunt won the stage in Shanghai. The women’s recurve team last took a stage in 2008 and the men’s team in 2012. The last individual recurve gold was Simon Terry in 2009. But for Ella Gibson and James Mason’s mixed team triumph in Berlin in 2019, the cupboard would be relatively bare. That all changed in April 2022, when an apparently relaxed British delegation took compound women’s gold, women’s recurve team gold, mixed team silver and individual women’s recurve gold – their greatest-ever haul from a single World Cup by some margin, in the 15-year history of the…

The GBR team took home three gold medals and a silver medal from the Antalya World Cup, held in Turkey in April 2022, including individual medals in women’s recurve and women’s compound for Bryony Pitman and Ella Gibson, and team medals in women’s recurve and mixed team recurve. The wins mean both Pitman and Gibson have received an invitation to the World Cup finals being held in Tlaxcala, Mexico, in October. No British archer has received an invitation to the finals since 2012. More information and a full review of the Antalya competition is available on page 51.…

I am often asked how archers can improve their scores and shooting form, despite only being able to shoot once or twice a week. I find that it is not very effective to simply replicate what the top archers are doing by following selective parts of a complicated training routine without the time to give it justice. We all understand the pressures of dayto-day life and how it often means sacrificing shooting time, so my view is that we should use our shooting time productively and work smarter. Much of what I am going to suggest can be done at home. With some planning and organisation, these seemingly uncontrollable influences can be overcome and even work in your favour. The important thing is to remember that archery is your chosen…

Have you ever been unable to concentrate during a session? Unmotivated to complete a round or achieve a specific goal? Continually distracted or fidgety while shooting? More generally, have you recently picked up your phone – or opened a new browser tab on your computer – intending to do one thing and, without thinking, found yourself doing something completely different? Has your attention span apparently got shorter recently? Do you find yourself tapping on an app or clicking on a link without realising why you have done so? Or found it difficult to sleep? Or finish reading a book? Or start one? Archery, when you really hit a groove, is about getting into a state of flow. Flow is a scientifically documented state when you are operating at your peak,…

Defining mobility can be a little confusing. When you look up ‘mobility training’, you will come across the big ‘mobility versus flexibility’ debate. Many will refer to a wide range of static or dynamic exercises simply as ‘flexibility training’, leaving you wondering: are mobility and flexibility the same thing? The answer is yes and no. How one defines the terms is largely dependent on the sphere to which the sports professional or speaker belongs. Some will use the terms interchangeably, some more specifically, to denote a precise mechanical function or property. In this article, the terms are defined from the point of view of human kinetics (motion, dynamics) and are separate: ‘flexibility’ as the ability of the muscles and tendons to go through the range of motion (ROM) about a…

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Archery jumped 12 places to rank as the seventh most popular sport on major social media platforms in 2021, according to a Sport On Social report published in April by creative consultancy Redtorch. In the overall global ranking, World Archery was listed behind only the international federations responsible for badminton, volleyball, football, athletics, basketball and cycling. The digital league table has been published annually since 2017 and uses data that is publicly available. The sport achieved record numbers during the Olympic year, totting up more than 810 million page impressions and 360 million video views in 2021. The World Archery Facebook page recently topped one million followers, having achieved the highest growth rate of any sport during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Archery was also rated fourth best on both…

The Korean national teams for 2022 were selected at the end of April. There was just a single new archer in the side making their A-team national debut – 21-year-old Lee Gahyun – with the rest appearing over the past few seasons at top level. Between them, the team boasts 10 Olympic gold medals. The women’s team are Lee Gahyun, Kang Chae Young, An San and Choi Misun. The men’s team are Kim Woojin, Kim Je Deok, Oh Jin-Hyek and Lee Woo Seok. Most of the focus for the Korean teams will be on the Asian Games scheduled in China in September. This is the most important tournament for the national Korean side apart from the Olympics.…

It’s usually around New Year when some of us will turn our attention to our fitness and health, since improving these particular aspects can often give us a feeling of rejuvenation. This is especially welcome when we want to leave any disappointments of the previous year behind us and make a fresh start. Most of us are at least dimly aware that improving our fitness will improve our archery. It is not often seen as a sport that requires high levels of fitness or even good health. This should be seen as a positive – it is a sport for all; whether you’re young or old, able-bodied or disabled, archers of every classification can find success. But you should still eat well and keep fit in ways that fuel your…

I cannot emphasise this enough: we all need to work on our back strength. Not only as archers, but as 21st-century humans. ‘Text neck’ and ‘office shoulders’ are a serious problem for people of all ages and it is getting worse. Building a strong back will help you and your archery, and can also stave off unpleasant problems such as kyphosis of the spine. There are so many stretching exercises to add into your exercise routines, warm-ups and cool downs for archery, so today I’m going to solely go through some strength exercises for you. All of these can be completed at home or in a gym and will require a stretch band. You’ve got one of those, right? Let’s start with the body-weight stuff. YTW warm-up This prepares the…

One common method used by archers to try to fine tune their equipment is to watch their group sizes. The method is typically something like: 1. Shoot a few ends (typically from one to three) and measure the group width (outside arrow to outside arrow). 2. Make a small adjustment to the bow (for example, add a click to the pressure button spring tension). 3. Shoot a few ends and measure the group width again. 4. If the group got smaller after the adjustment, that is good, so make another adjustment in the same direction. If the group got larger, adjust in the other direction. 5. Repeat until the optimum adjustment is found. There seems to be a few different ways to make the measurements. For example, I have seen…

The first full season of the archery World Cup since 2019 kicked off in April in the familiar setting of Antalya, the Turkish beach resort which has become one of the major world archery hubs. The 2020 season was in disarray. As well as being a perennial fixture on the World Cup calendar, teams from around the world are increasingly using it as a winter training base, attracted by the year-round good weather and relatively lower cost. This edition saw 340 athletes from 47 countries make the trip, including most of the major archery nations – apologies were metaphorically received from Korea, China and Japan. (The Koreans were still selecting their teams for the year when arrows started flying.) Russia was also absent from proceedings due to an international ban…

Fitness. Urgh. It is often mentioned, and less often practised in archery circles. What is really needed to progress in sport, to be better than others, to be ‘fit and healthy’? And what does it actually mean in an archery context? We spoke to a few of the elites about their fitness programmes, hates, biggest flexes – and who they think is the fittest archer around. BRYONY PITMAN We start with GBR’s Bryony Pitman. Bryony has been on the international scene for 10 years this year, and recently came home from Turkey with a spectacular haul of World Cup medals. What fitness hints and tips does she have to stay on the top of her game? Q: What exercise would you recommend to transform your shooting ahead of the outdoor…

There are so many amazing exercises out there for archery that all archers should have in their ‘gym quiver’, but I think if any upper-body sport had to choose one exercise that is fairly straightforward and accessible to all it would be the press-up, also known as the push-up. Why are press-ups great? Not only does a press-up work your upper body, it works you all over and can even give you a great core workout, too. The muscles that press-ups work include the pecs (chest muscles), triceps, biceps (arm muscles), shoulder muscles, lower back and ab muscles. These are muscles you use every day, so there should no issues with completing press-ups each day. Doing 10 before bed and 10 when you wake up shouldn’t give you any injuries…

Roughly 12,000 years ago, a climatic change in Europe led to higher average temperatures, warmer summers and generally beneficial conditions for a great variety of fauna and flora to prosper. Plants and animals hitherto only known in more southerly regions began to slowly migrate north, and in this process, which lasted several millennia, the yew tree (Taxus baccata) eventually made its appearance in the Alpine region. Its superior qualities were soon recognised by the bowyers of the time, and from the area of modernday Switzerland alone, more than 50 bows or fragments have been recovered and dated between circa 4500 BC to 2000 BC, making the small country the world record holder in Neolithic bow finds. During the Mesolithic age, elm (Ulmus glabra) had been the wood of choice for…

On 21 November this year, the 22nd FIFA World Cup will begin in Doha, Qatar. It will be the first football World Cup to be held in the Arab world and it will be only the second World Cup held entirely in Asia, after the 2002 tournament was held in South Korea and Japan. The circumstances in which the country was awarded the tournament remain mired in controversy. Qatar’s emirate rulers have long seen major international sport as a central pillar of a strategy to raise the country’s visibility, project soft power and help build the nation’s brand. A tiny state with a population of a little over 300,000 native citizens (and 2.3 million expat workers), staging major events is intended, among other things, to help boost the country’s tourism…