Archery is one of the oldest sports in the world, it has no ethnic or physical boundaries, it is a traditional skill found on all the continents of the world. Like other recreational sports of today archery started as a means of survival, a way of hunting, now it is an Olympic sport open to all ages, both sexes, and all physical abilities.
There are three main types of bow used in archery:
Olympic Freestyle (otherwise known as Recurve)
Compound
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Longbows are usually made of wood, with fabric wrapped around the stave for a handle. The traditional arrows used are wood with feather flights, (also known as Fletching's.) Alongside is a picture of a longbow which are traditionally made of yew with strands of horses hair as a string. These bows are still made and used today, some with a different blend of woods all put together to strengthen the bow, but due to the technological advances our civilization has made bows have had no purpose as a weapon, due to their inaccuracy and power to penetrate Armour. But for the purpose of competitions Longbows are still used as some people feel that archery should be shot the traditional way keeping the spirit alive. |
In today's world as archery has become an Olympic sport, more accurate bows have been developed with high tech accessories to improve accuracy, like the Recurve bow: |
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Recurve (or Olympic) bows have a metal or wooden center section called the riser, with two limbs bolted to the ends of the riser. The limbs are laminated from wood, carbon- fiber, glass fiber, or modern synthetic foams. The Recurve bow is the most common bow shot by archers today. Even the arrows are high tech to improve performance. Longbows traditionally use wooden arrows, where as Recurve bows can use aluminum arrows, carbon-fiber, or composites of the two. There are various different sizes of arrows that are made to suit the archer that is firing them. For example, a tall person would need longer arrows than a small person as their arms are longer, you may need thicker arrows or heavier arrows, your equipment is made to suit you. |
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There is another type of bow called a Compound bow. |  |
| These bows are very accurate and are built to make it easier to draw the string, due to the pulleys, cam wheels and the design of the bow. This design give a mechanical advantage and reduce the load held on the archers fingers. You may think that pulling back a bow is a simple thing to do, but the truth is that archery is allot more complicated than it looks. Depending on the limbs on your bow, some archers to pull up to 50lbs, obviously a beginner will never be able to pull back 50lbs to start off with. Even if your a body builder, you will find it difficult as your body is not use to using the muscles required to do archery, so when you start off you will have weaker limbs around 20-30lbs, and under 20lbs for Juniors. |