Over to the dark side…?

It was with no small sense of trepidation that I met Tarkwin at his archery club on Saturday for my first attempt at shooting my bow since the ill-fated attempt at resuming archery last year.

That attempt led to months of pain, physiotherapy, and the unhappy expectation that I’d never be able to do archery again (never mind the other aspects of my life it’s affected). It’s over a year since that night and my left shoulder, arm and hand are still not 100%. While there is no longer any pain involved, there is a definite weakness and reduction in motor control. My natural ambidexterity is quite high, but I still find that fine or unusual motion with my left hand (turning a lock or key, crushing a can, etc) requires more attention than before.

Tarkwin had lent me his compound bow — jovially known throughout the archery world as the dark side and its practitioners as darksiders — as, although it requires a stronger initial pull than a recurve, once you pull it to full draw, the total weight on your fingertips is often a quarter of the draw weight (e.g. a 60lb compound only requires 15lb force to hold it at full draw), dependent upon the cams used.

The “dark side” moniker is based upon a number of factors, some real and some perceived:

• Reduced full-draw weight.
• Tilt level bubble to make sure the bow is vertical.
• Magnification lens in the eyepiece.
• Trigger release, rather than finger tab.
• The sense that compound is easier than other styles.
• The weirdness of the bow and attitude of the darksider behind it.
• Compounds seem to be the main preserve of sports hunters in other countries and indeed their target archery, giving it a kind of stigma here in the UK.

It’s probably partly to do with it “being different” (we are just tribal monkeys in shoes, after all) and lack of understanding of the skill required to do it properly. I saw some of the Archery World Cup on TV last year and the compound finals competition was exceptional to watch, even though I was watching it for the recurve events.

Anyway, after 8-10 ends on Saturday I discovered a few things:

• I had no pain at all, anywhere.
• My left arm was incredibly weak, which is unsurprising after over 18 months of favouring it and doing no archery or strength exercises.
• I was able to use the compound quite well, considering it was my first ever attempt.
• Now, two full days later, there has been no aching or other DOMS symptoms.

It’s going to take some practice — a lot of practice — but it might be a viable way to get back into archery, assuming that I actually am unable to resume recurve.

I hope I can resume recurve. Not just because I have 2 recurve bows and an English longbow, but because I do enjoy it. Having said that, if recurve is out of the picture and I have compound as a viable alternative, then I’m not complaining. It just means I’ll have two bows to sell shortly!

New Year and all that…

It’s with the usual sense of shock that I realise I haven’t updated this blog in some time. It’s not entirely surprising as since my last post I’ve only made it to the gym 2-3 times, walked 3-4 times, and have done no running or cycling. Some of this has been due to a new business venture I’m putting together, which has been consuming all my recreational time, including my exercise time, but essentially it’s poor time management and some misplaced priorities. What’s worse is that I’ve put even more weight on: I’m back over 120kg. In all, it’s abysmal.

Conversely, Tarkwin has been making great strides in his physical health plan. He’s almost down to my minimum from last year and is looking worlds better for it. People may seem — or say they are — happy when fat and overweight, but the physical, emotional and hormonal benefits of slimming down are undeniable. You don’t have to be the ridiculous “ideal weight” than the BMI fantasy encourages, but somewhere in the broader Overweight category is worlds better than Obese (or higher).

With my return to work this week, after a lovely break over Christmas and the New Year (happy new year, all!), I plan to resume my exercising. As might be expected, already there has been a speedbump in that plan as yesterday I managed to hurt my lower back whilst carrying stuff downstairs into the garage and slipping on the icy steps. Not ideal, but I know it’s just a speedbump. I’ll be careful with it and start out easy.

My shoulder is still not completely healed, as evidenced whenever I happen to sneeze. It’s making me think that I may never be able to resume recurve or traditional archery. I might be able to do compound archery (referred to as The Dark Side because it’s as far from conventional archery as it’s possible to be), but even that’s not certain right now. Besides, I feel that I need to regain my core strength and basic core fitness before I consider it.

Fortunately (for me) it’s the middle of winter, so nobody in their right mind is riding a motorcycle with any regularity. While this means my riding skills are going rusty (I find that even a week without driving a car makes my driving feel uncoordinated for a short time), it does mean I’m not tempted to try out a ride on the bike. The sore back also puts paid to this for now. I suspect I’ll need to think about a more upright bike soon enough, especially if the shoulder continues as it has. The original plan was for a touring bike anyway, so now maybe it’ll become a necessity. Still, we’ll see once the sun rediscovers the northern hemisphere.

I’ve also made the decision to completely give up fullbore target rifle. It’s not just because of the bad experience I had with my previous club, but also because the government and the MOD (as owners of the ranges most people shoot on) keeps adding more and more hurdles and requirements to clubs and members. As it’s not something I’m prepared to invest time in to become a competitive shooter, I may as well accept that it’s more effort than it’s worth and be shot of the increasingly wearisome responsibility of having a sniper rifle in my house. Increasing bureaucracy seems to be a sure-fire way of discouraging me from anything…

So there we have it. I’ve let myself go and am feeling physically and mentally bad for it (this is different from the “how could I have let this happen?” guilt/disgust, which also exists) and I’m full of good intentions and a plan to rectify it. Time to strap up my rustbucket of a body and rediscover my motivation.

Wish me luck!

Indoor archery and much pain

Tonight was the start of my archery club’s indoor season at the school gymnasium, which marked my return to archery after a year or more off. I was quite excited about it, and looking forward to resuming a sport I really do enjoy.

Knowing I needed to work on regaining my strength and stamina – holding 40lb of full-draw string tension rock steady for 30-45 seconds 60 times over 90 minutes takes some work – as well as my form and accuracy, I chose not to score tonight’s Portsmouth round. Although it might seem a trivial matter whether or not to score, the problem is that by doing so you inadvertently find yourself trying to win – even if you’re doing it alone. It’s the nature of competitive sports. So by not scoring you remove that temptation.

My shoulder became steadily weaker and noticeably more painful during the round, which I put down to reduced strength and stamina, as well as the constant low-level shoulder pain I’ve had for a while now. In retrospect I probably should have heeded the warning signs, but in practice I was convinced it was not a muscular issue so would not impact the archery – after all, I’ve been able to return to the gym and ride my motorcycle without problem. Boy was I wrong.

After archery we visited our usual post-shooting watering hole for a pint, and I found myself unable to sit comfortably. This was new, as previously when the shoulder pain arose I could just sit upright and it would almost disappear (like it was posture-related). By the time I got home the pain was quite bad, and I took a couple of paracetamol which helped a bit. It was going to be a rough night.

Resuming archery

After the gym this morning, Tarkwin and I drove to Quicks, near Hampton Court Palace, for our first round of archery in a long time. Tarkwin hadn’t shot since March or April; I hadn’t shot since October last year, and hadn’t shot reguarly since summer 2007! So after a year off, I’ve regained my motivation for the sport and am excited at getting back into it.

We got there to find a motorcycle rally taking place in the fields by the centre, so that ruled out any outdoor shooting. Fortunately they have an indoor range, too, so we joined it with everyone else who was there. One of the AIUK regulars, Miles, was there, shooting compound with his son.

We didn’t manage 2 dozen arrows before I was feeling the strain and Tarkwin decided we should call it a day. I agreed as I didn’t want to push myself after the shoulder problems I’ve been having, and I just really wanted to ensure that my accuracy hadn’t been terribly affected both by my hiatus and by the injury. The arrows were grouping fine, so it was a successful trip.

Very much looking forward to the start of the indoor season on Monday evening!

Saturday gym & re-assessment

Tarkwin and I met at the leisure centre 10 minutes or so before our joint appointment for our gym re-assessment. We saw Lindsey in the corridor who told us that she had somehow got double-booked, so our appointment was with Gareth, who we’d seen before but hadn’t met.

Neither of us were sure how involved the assessment would be – whether it would just be a Q&A to determine what levels and types of exercises we were doing were suitable, or if it would include re-measurement of weight, lungs, etc. It turned out to be a Q&A session. Gareth asked us what levels we used for all the equipment, how that was going for us, whether there were any things we disliked, what our goals were, and so on. I advised him that the gym is a means to an end for me, with running and archery being my goals – the gym is there to improve both of them, as well as help me reduce weight and improve my CV system. Tarkwin’s was slightly different, but the general idea was the same.

As I’m running at the club and on Sundays, Gareth did not add running (which would probably be a logical step now), but adjusted the cardio work I’m doing. He also added a new machine, which is designed to both strengthen the core muscles (abs, etc) and assist in strengthening the muscles needed to draw a bow. I’m not sure of it’s name, but you often see chaps standing at it and drawing the cord across their bodies – except in this case, it’s going to start off as a straight pull towards me, and eventually have me standing at an angle a drawing it back like a bowstring. It was immediately clear that this exercise was going to benefit our core muscles and our bow-drawing muscles.

Gareth mentioned a few other changes he was going to make, that both increased the intensity (they had all become noticeably easier) and make more use of mixed intensity, but we’ll find out the finer details on Tuesday’s gym visit.

Once that was all done, we did the usual workout in the absence of a revised workout.

"No time for love, Dr Jones!" (or Archery)

Ten points to whomever can provide two film references for the quote in the post title (hint: one is referencing the original).

Just got back from my first evening of the new indoor archery season. It’s been 2 months since I’ve flung an arrow, and it was sporadic for a couple of months prior to that (a few reasons for this). I didn’t shoot anywhere near my personal best, but the score was (strangely) almost identical to the end-of-last-season indoor shoot I did at the end of March. Which is heartening, as my summer archery was negligible at best. Well, I’m back now to shoot indoors twice a week. Such a fantastic sport.

With the gym two evenings and one morning per week (Tu+Th+Sa), running 2-3 mornings per week (Tu+Th+Sa/Su) and archery two evenings a week (M+F), it really doesn’t leave a great deal of spare time. Hence the title.

I realise archery doesn’t technically count in the fat-to-fit idea, but it is a sport where its players definitely benefit from better health, fitness and specifically strengthened muscle groups. Part of my gym programme is specifically tailored to improve those muscle groups.

I won’t talk about archery much in this log, but though it worth mentioning at least once.