MB Archer Training Plan

bkupris

Supporter
Supporter
American Shoot
AIUK Saviour
This is a serious question regarding training plans. I am trying to get a handle on the level of commitment in time spent shooting/exercising/mental preparation etc in order to reach MB. For those of you that may have achieved this recently or are maintaining it what was your commitment (training plan) for a 12 month period from November to September?

Thanks

Brian
 

hypertigger

New member
last year, i was close to mb, and shooting 3 times a week (not inc competitions), cycling for 1 hr every day, gym twice a week for weights and a 2 hr yoga session once a week
 

bkupris

Supporter
Supporter
American Shoot
AIUK Saviour
last year, i was close to mb, and shooting 3 times a week (not inc competitions), cycling for 1 hr every day, gym twice a week for weights and a 2 hr yoga session once a week
Thanks Hypertigger

Did you phase your training in any way? Did you change the balance of time spent shooting vs exercise depending on the time of year?

Brian
 

Legolas

New member
last year, i was close to mb, and shooting 3 times a week (not inc competitions), cycling for 1 hr every day, gym twice a week for weights and a 2 hr yoga session once a week
Not sure who you are but with all that work you must look good.
 

hypertigger

New member
Brian,

i've had a change in gym routine, since october (the different machines/weights exercises that i use/do has increased quite a lot), but i do a lot more shooting during the summer as we are only allowed to have 1 session indoors a week, but outdoors we have the field 3-4 times a week.

indoors i try to cram in as many arrows as i can in the session - i do score the arrows, but i don't really pay much attention to them. i go for good group sizes, and note what i'm working on, or what happens to the arrows if i do something really silly. so about 9 dozen in about 2 1/2 hrs.

outdoors due to light, it's about 6 dozen an evening. then most of the competitions i go to, are 2 12 dozen +practise.

i think i do push my body quite hard, my holidays are either scuba diving (in which i mean 3-4 dives a day), or playing orchestral/chamber music, so christmas seems to be the only time where i just sleep or recover from the year. however i do eat like a pig, so i guess it all balances out.

i think you need to ease yourself into this kind of routine - as you do need to let your body recover - winter time is easier for me, as my body has more time to recover from a gym session, before i go shooting. however i'm increasing the weight that i lift slowing all through the winter, and i'll stop that as soon as i go outdoors, so that i maintain stamina/strength during the summer.

as for mental stuff, i visualise all the time, whenever i'm bored, or when i'm trying to go to sleep - i visualise matches, just shooting, different distances.

legolas, if you really want to find out, you'll find a link to photos of me shooting in my journal ;)
 

bkupris

Supporter
Supporter
American Shoot
AIUK Saviour
Hypertigger

Many thanks for taking the time to give me all that info. What I am actually doing is research to try and improve my coaching abilities. I have studied several suggested training plans from Fita etc but I would like to see how they actually compare with real life situations like your own :)

Brian
 

Deadeye Doc

New member
Whilst I was looking for training schedules, both for coaching and participants, I happened to come across a large Excel file produced by FITA and aimed at two specific international events, both of which were back in 2003. These indicate just how intensive someone at FITA believes training should be. Although the English was comparatively poor, the accompanying document explaining the Excel spreadsheet goes into considerable detail.

FITA - INTERNATIONAL ARCHERY FEDERATION - FEDERATION INTERNATIONALE DE TIR A L'ARC

I'm not quite sure why the FITA website doesn't give an appropriate individual URL, but if one looks on the website under "development" and scrolls down to "coaching" there are the appropriate documents in PDF and Excel form. Both of these "training plans" are reasonably useful when adapted to the individual archer. However, they are scary for the average club archer.

Personally, having retired I can now spend a great deal more time shooting. I shoot between 200 and 250 arrows between four and five times a week, currently mostly indoors. I cycle between 30 and 40 miles per week (which in the Yorkshire Dales means some massive hill climbs), and walk probably about 40 km in daily aliquots. As I have trained in hypnotherapy, NLP, and autogenic therapy, and ought to know :duck: something about my anatomy and physiology, and have an interest in sports medicine, I am well aware of both the mental and physical side and the motivational side of competing. I'm also lucky enough to have a friendly coach, and ex-GB archer.

The problem, as ever, is following a plan. I sort of have a (cunning) plan, which I worked out in conversations with both the Senior Coach and my own coach. So far I'm on track. My most important asset is support from my wife :cupcake:, who recognises how important this has become to me.:meditate:
 

Yorker

New member
I haven't achieved MB or any classification but as I consider myself fairly knowledgeable in sports training and the like here is my inclination:

You want to combine all the elements which contribute to your performance without any of them competing with eachother and throwing the other off. I would consider the main elements:

Cardiovascular Fitness
GPP - General Physical Preparedness
Strength and Conditioning - which links in with GPP

All of this letterheaded with Diet.

Why?
It has been proven by numerous studies that athletes in ANY field or persuit who are fitter and live a healthier lifestyle tend to perform better than others. Be it curling, sprinting, Judo etc. people with a higher general fitness, better lifestyle and a more natural bodyfat percentage performed better.

So, cardiovascular:
You need a combination of Aerobic and Anaerobic - this means running for distance and at pace. Best option is to run say 1.5 miles, walk briskly for half a mile and then sprint 100m, walk 100metre, sprint etc. for a further mile.

You can obviously scale down the 1.5 miles to a mile which you may find more realistic.
Other option is one day a week run for distance, one day do intervals, one day run for pace but I personally find this a little dull.

Cycling is good as well, get the body working, rowing is great for fitness and GPP.

GPP/Strength:
GPP is basically your ability to carry out general tasks and under this strength can come too.

For GPP you can do things like tossing sandbags, bodyweight squats and pistols, stretchy band expansions, curls, pulls etc, bullworker. Focusing mainly on circuits, continual exercise at a high volume.

Strength wise exercises like pressups and situps are rather ineffective because you don't have enough resistance to really build. However these are great exercises for GPP because they tend to build up the endurance and active ability (which is why the military love them).

Strength in archery probably one to two full body workouts a week depending on what you can take, lots of compound exercises like Deadlifts, bench etc. in a fairly low rep scheme like 6x4, 5x5 switching to 3x8 on a periodic basis to alter your muscular focus.

For archery I'd personally say doing high reps of things like Pressups, chins and other bodyweight natural motions is probably best - using a rucksack for extra resistance. Search the Thug Workout on youtube - good example.

Diet
This is the crux of it all - basically you want to cut out the big heavy meals so typical these days for 5 - 6 smaller more concise meals. Easier to digest and you can eat more.
Your basic nutritional requirements are Vitamins, Minerals, Protein and Carbohydrate.
Vitamin wise you need to eat fruit and veg on a regular basis. This is easily done, protein you get mainly from meats ie. Tuna, Beef etc. and carbohydrate comes in simple and complex form which you get from sugars and pulses respectively.

To split up your day:

Breakfast
"Snack"
Lunch
"Snack"
Dinner
Optional Extra meal

Breaky - meusli, porridge etc. Lots of complex carbohydrate
Snack 1 - Pasta/Rice with Veg, piece of fruit, peanut butter sandwich etc.
Lunch - Usual type of thing but with a piece of fruit and bigger portions. Bread will provide a lot of complex carbs, anything in the sandwich, other thigns.
Snack 2 - More things like pasta/potato/rice... fruit, veg and all that jazz
Dinner as usual.

You get the idea ;)

And in all this you want to combine a sufficient volume of arrows at a variety of distances in various conditions to give you the best chance at your shooting. Join in every competitive event you can - get used to the pressure so much that it is routine for you.

Key thing as well - chill time. Make sure you have days to recover, days to have off. If it becomes a trial you will cease to enjoy it and thus cease to perform. Allow at least two rest days in the week where you can do other things and just consider your performance the other days. Breaks it up a bit
 

Yorker

New member
Most of that is by no means exclusive to archery though - pretty much all of it is beneficial if adopted in your usual lifestyle.
 

buzz lite beer

Well-known member
The number one coaching aid you can give to your pupil (subject) to improve to any level, get them to break the shot down in order they do it so that each individual component can be visualised as vividly as possible at a later date or place so they can eventually re run the entire shot sequence in their heads or just a little aspect of it they may have concerns with whenever they have a bit of spare time on their hands.
 

clickerati

The American
Fonz Awardee
Ironman
American Shoot
The number one coaching aid you can give to your pupil (subject) to improve to any level, get them to break the shot down in order they do it so that each individual component can be visualised as vividly as possible at a later date or place so they can eventually re run the entire shot sequence in their heads or just a little aspect of it they may have concerns with.
have i heard this before or is it deja vu??? :scratchch :raspberry

it is actually very good advise :yes:
 

bkupris

Supporter
Supporter
American Shoot
AIUK Saviour
The number one coaching aid you can give to your pupil (subject) to improve to any level, get them to break the shot down in order they do it so that each individual component can be visualised as vividly as possible at a later date or place so they can eventually re run the entire shot sequence in their heads or just a little aspect of it they may have concerns with whenever they have a bit of spare time on their hands.
buzz

Yeah definitely, thanks :)
 

SLOWHAND

New member
Whilst I fully agree that a healthy lifestyle (exercise and diet) is a good thing I dont think that it has a huge effect on your archery performance. Look at the pro Darts Players, what these boys do however is spend an awful lot of time each day and every day practicing.

I am well over fifty and sad to say the only exercise I can manage these days is taking the dog for a walk. I do take some care with my diet but not excessively so. I have also been known to have a little drink (but only when the day ends with a Y). This may imply that I am not commited or serious about my sport but nothing could be further from the truth. I've made MB each year from my first full season, last year I changed from Recurve to Compound and was two points off making GMB.

What I do is spend as much time as I can practising, typically three or four times a week in the indoor season and four or five times a week outdoors. My pratice sessions are highly structured, not just shooting as many arrows as I can in the time. Sometimes I will work on a specific aspect of my form, other times I will work on tuning or the equipment but most of the time I try to make my practice sessions as near as I can to shooting under tournament conditions. Indoors that means shooting three carefull, well controlled arrows each end, not four or six as others at the club do. I always record my scores and even shooting three each end it's quite possible to shoot five dozen (a full Portsmouth or 18m FITA) on a two hour club night. The other thing that is essential is to be thoroughly prepared for the tournament. Every piece of kit that you are going to use has to be right, not just the bow and the arrows but your clothing, footware, food, drinks etc. Leave absolutely nothing to chance and try to prepare for every eventuality.

If I'm shooting a tournament, I'll make sure that on the week before it, I shoot each distance to check my sight marks are right and have not changed. I will never ever use anything in a tournament that I haven't used and tested at least once before in practice, this includes fletchings, clothing and footware. Never make any chages to the bow's set up before a tournament. A couple of days before the shoot I will thoroughly check the bow (and stabilisation, sight, string etc.), making sure that everything is ok (are all of the bolts tight). I will also clean and examine each arrow carefully, replacing any suspect nocks or fletchings (dont forget to shoot them at lest once before the big day).

Practice, preparation and planning are vital.
 
Whilst I fully agree that a healthy lifestyle (exercise and diet) is a good thing I dont think that it has a huge effect on your archery performance. Look at the pro Darts Players, what these boys do however is spend an awful lot of time each day and every day practicing.
Natural talent is a great thing, and a lot of top competitors do have this advantage. Lots of practice also fine tunes the particular sport you compete at as well. However, just doing the same thing over and over again with high forces places huge demands on the muscular and skeletal structure. Darts does not really have this issue, so the competitors can get away with being a little less worried about long term damage.

Most sports now highly recommend doing alternative training to ensure that the whole body can cope and prevent damage by just a small subset of the structure being used for your particular sport. Many top golfers, racing drivers spend a lot of their off-season getting their bodies into shape. This does have some performance assistance, but also it helps to get the body back into a more natural equilibrium.

Alternative training doesn't have to be a chore. Go hill walking for a couple of hours or go swimming both ideal on a wet and windy day when you can't get out and practice, but the body should be challenged in different ways.

I must admit that I do 'enjoy' gym work, and am currently doing 3 x 2 1/2 hour sessions a week (CV, core, and weights), but during the shooting season this will drop down to 2 x 1 1/2 sessions (CV and core).
 

SLOWHAND

New member
Brian, one other thing I forgot to mention, I see from your setup that you are shooting different types of bow.

You know what I'm going to say dont you. Yes it is possible for truly gifted and commited archers like Erika to shoot two disciplines to the highest level but for the other 99.999...%? You will never reach your full potential unless you concentrate on one type of bow. I bought a compound just over a year ago and thought that I could shoot both, I spent about four months doing this. My recurve scores plummeted by about ten points indoors on average. It's not so much that shooting one style makes you a worse shot in the other BUT your practice time is spread thinner and your commitment is less. OK, as a special treat, perhaps once a month dig the trad bow out and have a blast but any more than this and it will have a detrimental effect on the recurve.

Depends what you want from you archery and what your goals are. If you really want to be the best you can be with a recurve, gain MB and get on the rankings list, then I suggest you dont touch or even think about the trad bow for the next year or so at least. If you do you will never know just how good you could have been.
 
Top