Archery Exercises

Why archery exercises?
Different archery cultures like the Ottoman, Iranian or Chinese
describe archery exercises. Main reasons are:
-To prevent injuries,
-To pull your bow easier,
-Being able to use heavier bows,
-Being able to hold your bow steadier when aiming
-To create muscle memory to pull the bow always in the same manner to
the same anchor point with the same technique automatically
And besides it is great satisfaction after a successful training when
you sit down and drink your ‘keyif’ (relaxation) Turkish coffee.



Warming up
Warming up is very very important because what good is it if you
injure your muscle and stop all training for 6 months? Main pressure
points=injury points are the sinew at the ellbow and shoulders.
First warm up your whole body by e.g. jogging, skipping ropes, (or
shadderboxing) or gymnastics. Then you have to warm up and pump up
your relevant archery muscles. Like a butterfly that just left the
cocoon that is pumping air in its wings to make them stable you have
to allow your blood to flow in the relevant muscles. This will take a
while but it will make your whole body more stable and stronger.
You can start pulling a low poundage bow, do a few repetitions pause
for 2 mins then do a lot of repetitions. You see I do not give
numbers, everybody has to assess for him/herself what is low, medium,
a lot and maximum repetitions. The same with the term heavy bow and
low poundage bow.
Do a few sets of these until your muscles are burning. At this stage I
pull the string with my whole hand. You can use a piece of leather or
a sock to protect your hand. 

Then continue with the heavy bow. Pull the bow 1/3rd a few times,
pause for a minute, pull it half way a few times and pause again
(leave the blood enough time to travel up to your shoulders), then
pull successively until full drawlength. The technique has to be
right, you pull with your back muscles supported by the triceps of the
bow arm and by both shoulders. You do NOT use the biceps of your
pulling arm. I still see ‘experienced’ archers doing this mistake
pulling with the biceps. A friend can test this by touching your
biceps with a finger while you pull; it should be soft.
I advise to stand in front of a mirror so you can see and correct your 
technique and positions. Keep your ellbows high. Now you should be warm.

The best is to have several bows in dfferent poundages, you can
meet up as well with fellow archers as described in an Ottoman
training article. If you don't have other bows available you can bind 
elastic band around the bow as seen in the picture below. The draw 
weight is controlled by how many times you wrap the elastic around the bow.








1. Exercises with the bow
Basic pulling directions:

1. basic pulling to the left side horizontally
2. Pulling to the back horizontally (as far as possible)
3. Pulling to the right side horizontally (as far as possible)
4. Pulling to the front
5. bend upper body forward parallel to floor twist upper body up and
pull upwards (training for kabak shooting)
6. bend upper body forward parallel to floor and pull to the side
7. put the left fist on your left foot, keep your legs straight and
pull the bow downwards
8. Turn back and pull the bow down
9. Pull with other hand
10. Jarmaki pull

1. basic pulling to the side horizontally

2. Pulling to the back horizontally (as far as possible)

3. Pulling to the right side horizontally (as far as possible)

4. Pulling to the front

5. bend upper body forward parallel to floor twist upper body up and
pull upwards (training for kabak shooting)

6. bend upper body forward parallel to floor and pull to the side. 

7. put the left fist on your left foot, keep your legs straight and
pull the bow downwards

8. Turn back and pull the bow down

9. Pull with other hand

10. Jarmaki pull

Variations:
a) Pull the bow very slowly (variaton: pull it in 7 times and back in 7 times)
b) Pull the bow as quickly as possible one after the other
c) Pull the bow with the other hand (horsearchers used to be able to
shoot with right and left arm)
d) In order to simulate horseback riding, jump from one foot to the
other quickly doing the exercises or run while pulling if you have
space
e) while pulling go from one position/direction to the other e.g.
start pulling backwards then slowly turn after each pull and continue
pulling to the front then right

Horsearchers need to shoot in every direction, thus the different
directions above. Flightarchers just need a certain angle and dont
really need to shoot e.g.backwards or downwards.
Remember the bend should come from the hip, the ‘T’-position (=angle
between spine and shoulders) should be maintained at all times.

After a few sets doing 50% of your maximum repetitions start pulling
until exhaustion, have a longer pause e.g. 5 mins and continue
pulling until exhaustion. Do as many sets as you can/wish, the heavy
poundage-exhaustion sets should be at least 4. Be careful though as
your muscles get more tired the risk of injury increases.

At the shooting yard, you can do similar exercises (I would recommend
to do them at the end of the training):
-While the arrow is nocked, draw the bow 10 times before you shoot and
aim each time at the target
-The arrow nocked, pull the bow 15cm pause pull another 15 cm etc
until full drawlength then shoot.
-Pull the bow directly to full drawlenght and hold e.g. 10, 20 seconds
before you release the arrow (dont break the bow)

Training your thumb
You should train your thumb too as you will see that after a certain
poundage it will get more difficult to keep the thumb lock. You can do
the pulling exercises described above with a thumbring. Pulling the
string with a thumbring without a nocked arrow is not advised as the
dryfire risk is too high and the lock might slip on the string. The
old Turks used to have a special arrow with a hole near the nock. They
would put the string through the hole and then string the bow, so that
the arrow is locked with the string. In case the thumb lock releases
accidentally there wont be dryfire.
Instead of this method you can stand in front of a target with a
normal arrow nocked doing the same exercises.


2. Exercises without the bow
You can do additional weight training to train these muscles:
Deltoid (rear shoulder)
Trapezius (upper back)
Infraspinatus
Latissimus
Triceps
Neck

Do a second sport next to archery, many archery athletes in the
Ottoman Empire were wrestlers at the same time or e.g. went swimming
often.
Don't neglect your leg muscles, they are important to have a stable
position while aiming and of course for horseriding. Do sports that
will let you sweat so you won't get too stiff with all the muscle
training e.g. jogging, boxing, swimming, wrestling.


Diet
Of course you need proteins to build muscles, so low fat meat like
chicken, turkey, fish is fine. Dont forget the carbonhydrates though
and a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits and drink a lot.
Mixing honey and olive oil as a food supplement is advised in the old texts.

I tried it as well but my personal favourite is the Turkish ''Helva'', it is made 
of sesame and is very rich (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halva).
The exercises described above are not comparable to standard bodybuilding
in the gym; while doing few pulls with very high poundages, you also
pull medium to lower poundages until exhaustion. A historic
(horse)archer would need to use his muscles maybe for hours in the
battlefield. A Turkish flight archer would not shoot many arrows but still

they describe exercises with a lot of repetitions.

A typical training week
You should not use heavy bows and train until exhaustion every day but
only every second or even third day as it is hard training and your
body needs to recover. Monday Wednesday Friday can be the hard days
and the other days can be days where you do normal (horse)archery or
do other sports or train with low poundage bows with a lot of
repetitions. Even resting and doing nothing for a day is good
sometimes. But beware, you need to train regularly and disciplined; it
is written that the old Turkish archers said: if you leave archery one
day, archery will leave you 10 days. With proper training good results
can be achieved in a short time, but if the break is too long the drop
in performance will be huge and the risk of injury will increase.



Last tips at the end
Keep your muscles warm at all times, day and
night. Be careful when you are sleeping, don't sleep on your shoulder

or arm. A famous Turkish flight archer champion had guards standing

at his bed at night time just to prevent him from sleeping on his arm.

Gokmen
gokmenaltinkulp@gmail.com