Working out regularly and staying in shape is crucial for your overall health. Not only is it important to avoid gaining excess weight but it’s also crucial for cardiovascular fitness, your mental health, boosting your immune system, improving flexibility, managing stress and your overall well-being. As we all live increasingly busy lives nowadays, it can be difficult to find time to dedicate to working out. The key is to find a pastime that you enjoy with a great community that you can feel a part of that will help to keep you focused on progressing in your activity of choice.
Archery is an incredibly accessible sport that can be practised by people of all ages, abilities and genders. You can join your local archery club to connect with other people who share your interest and pursue this exciting hobby either for fun or competitively. For added convenience, you can even set up an archery set in your backyard, allowing you to practice regularly and experience the full benefits of this intriguing activity. Getting involved in archery can also benefit your health in many ways. Whether you practice outdoors, indoors, competitively, or just for fun, archery is a fun way to burn calories, stay active and sharpen your state of mind.
Let’s take a look at just some of the ways that archery can help you to achieve your health goals.
Burn More Calories
Maintaining a healthy weight can be challenging at the best of times but with regular exercise, you can manage your weight with greater ease. While going running, lifting weights, cycling, swimming, and other popular weight loss activities are all great for burning calories, they are not for everyone. Taking part in archery is a great way to expend energy and shift some of those unwanted kilos. When you draw the bow and walk back and forth to the target to collect your arrows you burn calories.
While it might not sound like a lot, it has been reported that an Olympic archer will burn approximately 1,084 calories on their way to the top of the podium. That’s just 747 calories less than the female marathon runners and 1,0554 more calories burned than the male one hundred metre sprinters! Archery might not seem like it burns more calories but after some time on the range, you will start to see results, especially if you keep a close eye on your diet.
Increases Strength
Archers rely on their strength to draw back their bow with enough force to propel the arrow towards the target with accuracy. This process engages the shoulder, arm and upper back muscles, working them out harder than you might think. However, as most archers will tell you, the muscle group that gets the best workout is your core. Having a strong core is essential for maintaining balance and poise when you are drawing your bow and aiming at the target and competitive archers put a lot of work into developing a strong core so they can remain stable throughout the process of taking a shot. Regularly practising archery is a great way to increase your upper body strength, build a stronger core and ultimately improve your posture.
Improve Mental Focus
As an archer, you have to meticulously go through your shot routine to ensure consistency every time you step up to shoot. Whether you practice for fun or you want to compete, you need to find the mental strength to block out distractions such as noise, wind and other things in your environment that could ruin your shot. Delivering the perfect arrow takes physical skill but it also takes a certain amount of mental clarity and focus.
Archery has been shown to improve focus over time. It’s also a great way to reduce stress as when you are shooting, your mind is completely focused on what you are doing, allowing you to enter a flow-like state where you can switch off from your worries. Practising archery also teaches patience which can help you to manage other aspects of your life with greater confidence, allowing you to be more relaxed in your day-to-day life outside of archery. There are many lessons to be learned from drawing an arrow and you might be surprised at how much archery can improve your mental health, your ability to manage stress and your overall outlook on life.
Experience The Amazing Benefits Of Archery For Yourself
If you want to get started in the exciting world of archery, simply search for a club in your neighbourhood, at your school or at your university. Archery might not be the most mainstream sport out there but there are also more clubs than you might think. Sign up for a class, learn the basics and start experiencing the many health benefits that archery has to offer. In no time, you can be sure that you will be hitting all of your targets both in terms of health, developing your archery skills and in your life away from the bow.