-Bryleigh McKeithan- Archery can benefit young, growing bodies in many ways. It can help with your hand and eye coordination, mental acuity, strength, and endurance. Archery is good for your body and mind, and that is one of the reasons it is my favorite sport.
The science behind the benefit archery has on hand-eye coordination is very interesting. According to NewzblazeNewz and my research, “one of the essential skills needed in archery is hand-eye coordination.” Archery teaches the muscles in your body to work together while performing different jobs. An example is when you aim your bow with one hand and pull the string and fire the arrow with your other hand. This requires coordination for your eyes to aim while your arms do the work.
A second benefit of archery is mental acuity (focus). Archery can greatly improve your mental acuity because you must concentrate on safely shooting an arrow at a very small target from long distances. Mental acuity is important for students such as in school when you really need to focus on doing an assignment or listen while the teacher is giving a lesson. It helps me when I’m sewing with a very small needle and thread, and when I’m riding horses and need to be aware of my body and the horse. When I practice archery, I do nothing but focus on a target, which can be very calming as it balances body and mind.
A third benefit of archery is strength and endurance. When drawing back your string, you’re using many muscles of your body such as your biceps, triceps, core, and quadriceps. Archery requires many repetitions using the muscles, which helps them get strong. While walking from place to place on the range, some archers have walked up to 500 miles in their careers. Archery can help students get exercise and strengthen muscles used in other sports.
When you practice archery a lot, you get very good at multitasking with different parts of your body. It is evident students improve both physically and mentally because of archery. Archery is a fun sport and has benefits outside of shooting. I really love this sport and encourage others to give it a try!
Bryleigh was a 2022 student contributor. To find the rest of her articles, visit here.
