Posts tagged Luxembourg Archery
Coffee Moment July 26th: Train With a Purpose
Jul 26th
If you thought that weekends are for taking it easy, not getting up until late, lazy breakfasts on the terrace and watching some sport in the afternoon…
Well mine couldn’t be further from that ‘ideal’.
Most of my weekends involve getting up earlier and heading out to an archery tournament.
Much like last weekend my choice of coffee this morning is poor… Some boiled crap with a splash of white stuff that has never seen a cow.
The shoot this weekend is our national championships, which basically means a straight out contest between myself and my team mate Gilles Seywert for honors.
This is the field championships which rewards good shooting AND being fit enough to get around the course being able to perform the whole weekend. If i have any motivation for being fit for my sport, this is it. two days of climbing up and down hills shooting 72 arrows over the course of 6 or more hours.
If you’re not fit there is no way you can perform the same shot at the start and at the end of the weekend.
All those hill sprints I do at Forestfit pay off on courses like this. You kinda feel invincible and certainly way ahead of your competitors when you are not gasping for air at the top of each incline.
The other side benefit of all this training is your balance and flexibility. Many of the shooting pegs are on uneven ground and the angle of your shooting posture is not even close to the perfectly flat ground of your practice shooting facility. This makes it essential for you to have a strong stance and flexibility to contort yourself into the right position for the shot.
Outside observers of archery would think it is sport for the non athletic type of person. I know you can compete if you are some fat bloke, but you’d be far more competitive if you did some type of physical training, and I really know how much more enjoyable it can be when you are fit.
Train with a purpose, don’t just say you want to be fitter, or to lose ‘some’ weight. Train to be better at your sport it really gives meaning to your workout.
Archery Training: Prep For National Field Champs
Jul 23rd
Archery is something that is fluid… it is always moving,
my form
my belief
my training regime
ALL seem to be in perpetual motion, sometimes improving, sometimes getting worse, but NEVER staying the same.
Very much like physical conditioning you NEVER maintain, your body is never in a constant state. The only constant is change, you are either getting fitter, stronger, more flexible, or going in the opposite direction.
I am in a period of ascendency at the moment, which is not hard considering where I have been 
)… Last weekend I won my first tournament for some time, only a local thing, but still a win is a win.
This evening I went to do a little prep for this weekend’s tournament, which is the national field champs in Walferdange, Luxembourg. Sight marks for 20 and 60 meters a couple of quick measures for peep height and sight length and hey presto a sight tape… If you are not using a program like archers advantage to set up your sight marks you are missing out on points and valuable training time.
If you are new to field archery, I would advise on just one thing… make sure you sight marks are really, REALLY accurate. If you don’t do anything else in prep you’ll have at least a sane couple of days on the field course, with a set of marks you can rely on.
Hopefully my form will continue to develop and I can take on Luxembourg’s finest…
Form is temporary, class is for ever )