Archery is one of the oldest sports of all, and many prehistoric societies around the world developed the bow and arrow for hunting and warfare, from Native Americans to African hunters to tribes in the Pacific, and today, while farms have largely replaced the need for game hunting, archery still stands today as a popular recreational sport and a means of hunting legal game for an outdoor adventure. Modern bows are much different than the simple wooden bows used in ages past; today’s bows come in a variety of shapes and features to fit archers of different strength and for different purposes, and accessories such as sights can be fixed onto them for better shooting. Those looking to get into recreational archery for the first time can get an archery training bow to help them learn the basics, and archery training may also include using an archery app on a smart phone to keep track of scores and maintain a training schedule. Archery is more popular today than some may realize, and archery rehab devices are also available for those needing physical therapy.
Archery Today
This time-honored sport is practiced by many Americans today, from kids to seasoned adults. Archers are a part of the larger body of outdoors and hunting enthusiasts, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Survey found that 101.6 million Americans take part in hunting, fishing, and wildlife activities in the year 2016, which is 40% of the entire American population. For archery in particular, as of 2016, nearly 7.9 million people aged six and up took part in this sport, and more women are getting involved, too, showing archery’s increasing diversity. U.S. Census Bureau information shows that more women are starting to hunt over the last 10 years, and they make up 11% of all American hunters today. Similarly, studies done for the Archery Trade Association show that nearly four million women take part in archery, either for target shooting or game hunting. This sport even appears in the Olympics, and those interested in the outdoors can hunt game such as turkeys or deer with archery, or else simply take part in target practice, and there are plenty of leagues and tournaments where target archers can compete.
Getting Into Archery
Archery is something that everyone is familiar with, since a bows and arrows are a universal idea, and crude models can be made out of nearly anything when a flexible bow, a string, and an arrow are fashioned. For proper archery today with real equipment, a beginner can bet an archery training app to log their efforts, such as their scores (to see if they are improving their aim), set up a schedule for training, and share this and other information with their trainer or league to keep everyone updated (and get updates from other trainees in return). Trainer bows will probably have a lower draw weight, meaning that less strength is needed to fully draw the string back, and as a person trains with archery, they will develop certain muscles and can move on to heavier bows that shoot arrows further and with greater force. This gets an archer ready for either hunting or target practice or even tournaments, and once their skills are developed, they can compete with many other archers.
Archery rehab devices, meanwhile, are often low-weight bows wi9th rubber strings that are easy to draw back, and archery rehab devices can be useful as a part of a person’s physical rehab and therapy. No actual arrows are launched, and the archery rehab devices have rubber strings that are easy to draw, so this is different than real shooting. Archery rehab devices can be useful for those who hurt themselves with real archery, such as harming a joint or pulling a muscle, so when they are ready, they can use archery rehab devices to ease their bodies back into the effort of drawing a bow without the strain of using a real one. Archery rehab devices might also be useful for those who want to maintain their draw muscles in between hunting seasons or archery events, but without the risk of pulling a muscle or straining a joint and thus ruining their ability to shoot.