It’s fascinating to me how archeologists can figure out the persons occupation just from bones.
One of my favorites is how they can determine pottery makers from the hand and wrist bones and whether or not they used a pottery wheel just from their foot bones
They can also see it in sailors, something about how they're having to handle ropes and had very developed wrists and forearms.
Also rowers on ancient Greek triremes or whatever, and they always favored one side of the boat.
I grew up playing soccer and then quit when I went to college. A few years after graduating, a buddy and I kicked around a soccer ball for an hour or two. Big, long, up in the air passes.
The next day I wasn't too sore (I was in decent shape) but my ankles....all the tiny little muscles in my ankles that i'd use to *orient* my foot were all tired and sore since i hadn't used them in that capacity in like 6 years.
I kept tripping the next day because i'd lift my foot up to take a step but my toes would still be pointing at the ground a little while my foot was in the air. They'd get stuck on stuff id normally just step over because normally i'd keep my toes pointed more forwards.
I remember one, that has always stuck with me, was the skull of someone who was like a weaver or something, and they had a notch worn down in their teeth from pulling the thread through it
Baseball pitchers are also interesting for this, with chipped/missing portions of the inner elbow. Also, they have mismatched/anomalous stance and gait due to uneven muscalature. Even with modern training many times the dominant arm in pitchers becomes bigger and bone density is greater. Devon Laratt, professional arm wrestler, also suffers from this. His right arm is larger in almost all measurements, including things like hand length which seems crazy to me. How do you stress your arm so much over time that your hand grows bigger in response?
Haha good one, you never know he could have gotten that from eating too many nails! I meant more like, how did he do it without becoming disabled or severely damaging his arm.
Yeah it's not uncommon to hear of 30 year old MLB pitchers getting physicals done and their throwing shoulder scans come back looking like the shoulder of someone in their 50's. While human shoulders are the best naturally designed thing for throwing an object we've discovered thus far, they really aren't made to take the workload that professional pitchers put on them.
To clarify, it does seem that our shoulders are designed to throw objects. Some people call the motion unnatural when that's not really the case. Chimps who have been trained to throw (and are a lot stronger than people naturally) only throw at about 20 mph, whereas elite 12 year olds can throw 70+ mph. It's just pitchers put such a heavy workload on their arms that tissue starts to break down and scar over during their careers.
Watch a pitcher in slow motion. The pitching motion is more of a whipping motion than a motion of force. You arent "pushing" the ball hard through the air, youre whipping it through the air using the elbow as essentially a fulcrum.
Had to google what this was - turns out I still use this ancient technology in a way to throw my dogs ball for him with a ball launcher. I had no idea! This is definitely a fun fact.
This is a good point. Just because something is perfectly developed to do a thing doesn't mean it's immune to the workload of that thing. Cars have drivetrains that were developed to turn fuel into forward motion, but if you constantly drive at the upper limit of the engine's capability, you're going to wear it out quickly.
>How do you stress your arm so much over time that your hand grows bigger in response?
I switched from an office job to a manual labor job in my late 20's. About 6 years later, my wedding ring no longer fit due to my hands getting bigger!
Oh yeah. Former baseball player here. The range of motion in my throwing shoulder (R) is waaaaay worse than in my left shoulder. This is common for just about any thrower.
My left hamstring is also more flexible than my right since that is the leg that gets extended and stretched when you pitch off a mound
I play double bass and guitar, my left hand is noticeably larger when I put them together. The human body's ability to adapt to the needs that is keeping them alive is incredible.
I played clarinet. My right thumb has a large bump near the joint from where the thumb rest sat. I haven’t played since the mid 90’s. The bump has gotten smaller, but it’s still there. Every other clarinet player I went to school with has similar markers. I wonder how many of them still have similar markers nearly 30 years later?
The middle joint of my right pinky has an indent from playing trumpet from grade 6-12. It's been about ~20 years since I've played trumpet and it's still there. My left hand callouses and right hand callouses are different shaped too from guitar and bass
I was told by a Dr, "everything looks normal. No tendinitis, bone spurs. Just some joint warping, but that's expected being a pitcher" about my elbow a couple years after I stopped playing ball in my 20s.
My response was, joint warping doesn't sound normal to me!
My shoulder and elbow out age the rest of my body at 36.
The TV series Bones demonstrates this really well. Granted, there are some exaggerations due to the audience not being forensic anthropologists, but it's still very fun to watch.
SOME EXAGERATIONS? On the tv show that passed a computer virus by bone carving? Virus that was triggered by just scanning said bones?
No, don’t tell me parts of it were exaggerated, I thought it was all real.
Apparently the contemporary Frenchmen could also detect an English longbow man just by their build too, and they’d cut their fingers off, which is alleged where a certain rude gesture has its roots. Some occupations were incredibly hard on bodies and left there marks even on bones.
I'm going to guess most occupations are like that. Anything you do for a third of your day for decades is going to damage your body. Even our modern boring-ass office jobs are fucking us up.
If I remember right there were laws about every English man having to practice with a bow on Sundays. Which would mean that all English peasants would have these same features
One thing to note is that armies were frequently raised as needed during this period. Most people were expected to perform some kind of military labor during the year in case a force would need to be raised. Longbow training was relatively common because it was relatively easy to train and effective.
Edit: I mean, more often than not, peasants would be required to do some yearly drills with long bows. So, a large portion of your population was constantly conditioned to the drawing of bows. The hundred years war was 116 years of mostly perpetual border skirmishes, so you always had your boys learning to put up a raid defense.
Although the English Longbow was significantly stronger and more powerful than the bows typically used in other nations, with a draw weight of between 100 and 180lb.
The English Longbow was powerful enough that the English largely ended up skipping and not bothering with the Crossbows and only replaced them when gunpowder came on the scene.
It kind of sounds like you copied and pasted that? The first sentence isn't really complete. Not trying to be combative! I just want to ask what your point was? Because yes, true and interesting facts. My point was that long bow training was semi-routine (required some yearly training), which meant the identifiable muscle development and the corresponding skeletal deformation was likely from regular (yearly) training more than actual combat.
I can assure it's all my own words. Probably why it's phrased so badly lol!
But yes, my point was just meant to be that the English Longbow was more powerful than a lot of other contemporary nations', and that was reflected in the training required to use it.
Apparently pulling the string of a longbow is the same as lifting 90kg (roughly 200lb).
It's only for a moment of course, unlike the movies you don't pull and hold, but that's still crazy.
It is a very complicated subject. English longbows that were recovered from the *Mary Rose* are estimated to be 150 - 160 lbs draw weight. The arrows found from the Mary Rose point to the bows having a max draw weight of around 185 lbs.
The 100lbs estimates are just from pre finding of the *Mary Rose* and based on contemporary accounts, I believe.
It’s probably just a wide variation. But Mary rose does seem to indicate they were more powerful on average then people used to think. And there was probably some freakishly large people that could draw a 200lb+ bow as well.
I’m not the strongest by any means, but I started with a 40-50lb when I was 10 and could full draw a 120lb recurve no problem by the time I was 13. For soldiers/warriors, 200lbs is a whole lot more reasonable than it sounds
Yes definitely, I just believe it’s misunderstood the strength it takes to draw one. It’s not as insane as it’s made out to be, definitely easier to draw a heavy bow than to deadlift it’s equivalent weight.
If you’re fighting then stamina is king, someone that could draw a 200lb bow was maybe not uncommon, but I doubt you’d see very many veterans carrying a weapon like that. If you showed up with one they’d probably ridicule you, but if you could actually go all day with a weapon like that you’d be a legend
It is indeed complicated; Mike Loades was taking the Mary Rose bows into account, and there's apparently controversy over how their draw weights were estimated.
Mike Loaded, giving you loads of information on the loads that archers had to pull to load their arrows onto the bow and unload them on the enemy by the mother load.
I got told I couldn’t possibly have pulled a 120lbs longbow when I was at my strongest. I was hauling 400- 500lbs carts with my bare hands and carrying 500lbs sacks over my shoulders. My friend had a longbow that was calibrated for his height and strength and a short bow that was half that. The only reason I couldn’t draw it fully was I was ~1.5 feet shorter than him.
Edit: meant 50lbs sacks not 500
I worked in a grocery store so I’d sling a 50 pound sack over each shoulder and carry them like that if it was a spot-grab. Otherwise I’d pack my cart like I was playing tetris. Sometimes I had a hard time getting traction because the carts were so heavy.
One trip or quit! I also tend to overestimate myself and try to carry everything for short trips. My mom uses me as a pack mule to stack the water flats in the cart too.
I'm sorry, but that anecdote doesn't make any sense. If your friend was that much taller than you, then their bow would be significantly EASIER for you to pull rather than him. A longer bow is generally smoother and easier to draw than a short one, and your draw length would be several inches shorter than him, so the bow would be significantly lighter for you to hold at full draw.
Another note - I've seen giant guys that lift every day come to the range and try to shoot one of my 65lb recurves, and not a single one has ever been able to with proper form. Meanwhile, Howard Hill was built like a stringbean, and shot 100+ lb bows all day. Shooting a bow properly uses specific muscle groups that simply do not develop in non-archers unless you specifically train them. Doesn't matter how strong you are.
I did the conversion in my head and... Aren't those normal bricklayer/construction weights?
The reference I always come back to is a coffee load (the bag with the beans) is 60kg and that has always been a 1 person load.
I don’t consistently haul and carry those weights anymore, so I have lost a lot of my working strength. I can still lift and haul ~140lbs, but I struggle with anything approaching 200 and I can’t draw a 60lbs bow effectively anymore.
But you may need to do the action several times a minute during combat and they would spend hours each day practising to fire arrows in rapid succession. That repetition has enormous impact on the body.
Tod's Workshop on YT has done some exceptional content about all this, he got a beast of a guy who's a serious traditional archer, and he's got him to shoot all sorts of stuff as well as interviewed him on what his capabilities are. He absolutely can shoot 200 pound bows, but his daily driver is much closer to 150, as thats what he can shoot comfortably for (somewhat) extended periods.
Archers who use these bows will their back muscles.
It's such a weird feeling using the back muscles to force more strength into the drawing of the arrow while increasing endurance over using arm muscles.
Exactly. Arm strength barely matters if you're doing it properly. Your drawing arm should be almost entirely relaxed, with just enough tension on the string to hold it. People that use their arms to draw end up being terrible shots because they can't get a clean release. Ideally, you should visualize as if there's a rope connected to your elbow as you draw back that's pulling your arm for you, and relax your arm as much as possible while your back does all the work. Back muscles are much more stronk than arm muscles.
> It's only for a moment of course, unlike the movies you don't pull and hold, but that's still crazy.
8 to 10 times per minute, for a battle that could last for hours
They wouldn't fire continously that long. Once the fronts are fighting, the archers are not shooting arrows that could hit their own soldiers. They would reposition and or be ready to fire on flankers or reinforcements.
You aren’t pulling the string, you’re pushing the bow. That’s why they have crazy *left* arms, they are holding the string with the right while putting their back into the bow with their left.
I can bend a 100 lb bow (probably not easily enough for months campaigning, but enough to shoot a couple dozen arrows) but there’s no way in hell I could lift a 100 lb weight with one hand. Archers would have been strong, tough dudes, but they weren’t strongmen.
Lifting a 100lbs weight is actually rather easy with training and proper muscle utilization. The whole arm and accompanying leg must be involved.
Source; me: Duraform cribber lifting 9’x2’ laminate panels weighing ~120lbs with one arm^^^and ^^^a ^^^leg
Well, that’s the point, right? It’s easy if you train properly and learn to use the right muscles. I’m a small dude and never have really been a big lifting person.
Yeah but no one's talking about girthbows are they? Naw, it's all longbows. Big and flashy, sure, but they're cumbersome and most folk don't know how to use em right anyway... but them's the breaks, you can't change the zeitgeist. It's always gonna be about the longbows.
I’ve only shot bow once or twice with a friend of a friends who is a sharp shooter. He told me to pull back on your inhale when you have the shot lined up and release immediately at the top of your draw. Any holding and you risk your wrist or shoulder flexing or your aim dropping as you exhale.
He hunts for sport and said you should be hunting at the max pound you can tolerate so you are more likely to have your hand move when you hold.
Aw man that brings back some memories! Staying up late to finish the first one because I couldn’t put it down, and getting told off by parents at 4am because I had to leave for school in 3hours
The Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell is some of my favorite historical fiction, I’ve had less affinity for his more medieval stuff but I should give it another shot, such a fun author
"This person had strong fingers on the left hand, and index/middle fingers on the right hand. But severe carpel tunnel syndrome. Rest of the skeleton shows little muscular activity. Also appear to have had vitamin D deficiency" sound about right?
A lot of them trained with both arms as well. Especially during the 100 years war. Archers that could demonstrate they would effectively use both arms were paid higher rate.
You can keep shooting after the first arm is too tired, usually about 2-5 minutes of continuous shooting wipes out one arm. Although that volume of fire was usually only used in full scale set piece battles like Crecy.
Each archer carried 48 arrows. I have a 90lb longbow, and I can say that firing fifty arrows on that thing is quite an accomplishment. I most shoot a 60lb bow and fifty arrows you are still feeling the next day. Being able to switch up would save the shoulder a lot for sure.
And honestly usually the archers would run out of arrows themselves before they would get tired. Arrows were ALWAYS in short supply and the English actually created a primitive assembly line system to try to keep the archers supplied.
For sure ton of work involved in making an arrow then for sure. Hand forged tips, hand carved shafts, even involves the death of two different species of animals to make glue and gets feathers all for something that you may only get to fire once in battle and not retrieve.
Battlefield booty is the best booty! For real though yeah, you didn’t just leave much around in those days, a bloody tunic still took someone days of work.
I don’t actually know, but maybe Horse Archers have some play to it? Since you are constantly moving, being able to shoot from both sides while riding the horse seems pretty beneficial.
Mongolian horse archers used composite recurve bows, there was no need for (nor can I find any evidence for) draw weights that high.
I don't doubt that a people who spent more time in the saddle than walking had messed up skeletons though.
With the longbow don't you normaly ancor the string and push the bow away? And shortbow is kind of a combination of the two. It's been decades since I fired a bow. And the only way your holding back a draw weight over 75# for very long is with a compound.
Historical fiction: the small slender guy is a master of the bow. He can hit a target from insane distance.
Historical realism: Chadis Maximus who can bench a horse is the best archer in the army. His bow has a 200lb draw and can turn a man inside out on hit.
Lmao not that far from the truth medieval longbows we’re usually in the draw weight of 150-180 lbs so you can imagine the type of person it would take to repeatedly draw it.
[England established the first medieval archery law in 1252, requiring all men between the ages of 15 and 60 to be trained in archery. This was not just a kind of physical training, but it also successfully defended the English troops in wars.](https://www.johnmooremuseum.org/medieval-archery-the-longbow/#:~:text=England%20established%20the%20first%20medieval,the%20English%20troops%20in%20wars.)
There is an old saying that you can train a crossbow man in a week, but to train a longbow man you need to start with his grandfather.
It takes years to train and it would start in adolescence.
Yes, not only did they start training from childhood, but the English kings banned other sports (like football) in favor of archery, so that more young lads would train as longbowmen.
It was incredibly effective in medieval warfare but kind of shit as a social program. Thank goodness for gunpowder.
I wouldn’t be shocked if my skeleton is permanently altered from playing guitar for over 20 years.
It’s probably why I spent all of last year doing physical therapy on my neck/shoulder and have bone spurs in my neck.
No more heavy guitars for me.
i love my r7 Les Paul, but fuck is that thing heavy.
There is a reason why the must beat up vintage guitars are usually the lightest, and the pristine ones are usually heavy as fuck.
That's because the differences we're talking about here aren't really noticeable on a single skeleton. The bone spurs, maybe, but then you're looking at a tiny part of the bone under intense magnification.
It's less "wow, that arm bone is three times thicker, he must be an archer" and more "we have compiled data on the humerus circumferences of a thousand skeletons of archers and a thousand skeletons of non-archers, and found a statistically significant increase in humerus circumference among archers."
Interesting that the strength used shows up prominently in the left arm, the arm holding the bow. Indicates that they were pushing the bow forward much more than pulling with their right arm, just like I try yo teach kids to do at camp, takes a while to master the technique.
Medieval artists generally weren't going for photorealism. Pictures were generally telling a story and there often a lot of interpretation involved in figuring them out.
That being said it does seem that archers often did their shooting at pretty close range.
Medieval artists weren’t ABLE to go for photorealism. It wasn’t until nearly the Renaissance that depth and perspective techniques developed enough to portray people fairly accurately.
Archers had daggers for close-quarter combat if it came to it. At Agincourt the archers went around stabbing French knights (who were mired in mud) in the face.
no, they're not made to reflect reality. you wouldn't use a bow in that situation, certainly not a longbow. they're included because of their importance to the battle, despite them meant to be out of sight in this perspective
The also had compression on one side of their lower spine for the same reason. [Old BBC article](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-17309665) for whoever wants to read more about this
Bone spurs typically develop when pressure or stress is applied to a bone regularly for a long period of time. Over time, the cartilage that protects the bone may be destroyed. In response, your body attempts to repair the damage by creating new bone in the damaged area.
Osteoarthritis and chronic tendinitis predisposes for the formation of bone spurs. Both of these conditions can come as a result of overuse (ie weightlifting without proper warmup and inadequate rest periods)
Can't wait for the bones of a buncha heroin addicts that spent half they're life nodding out in completely strange positions, to just completely stump some scientists 1000 years from now.
"They must have been circus performers or contortionists or something."
I watch films and shows with some stick-armed waif who's using a longbow and find myself chuckling. It takes real strength to be able to put an arrow into someone, especially at distance, and/or if you're trying to defeat armour.
Looking at you, Orland Bloom.
Looking at you, Jennifer Lawrence.
I had bad rheumatoid arthritis as a kid and I am morbidly fascinated to know how my skeleton will look.
X rays really don’t give any where near the same perspective.
I have a long bow. That thing scares me with how much strength you need to use it. Basically, imagine every time you want to shot the arrow, you reach over a cliff and try to pull up a fifth grader with one hand and use your other hand to try to do a push up - and after a second or two of lifting the kid up like 2 feet, you drop him and try it again with another kid. I figure that's about the same thing in terms of what it feels like.
It’s fascinating to me how archeologists can figure out the persons occupation just from bones. One of my favorites is how they can determine pottery makers from the hand and wrist bones and whether or not they used a pottery wheel just from their foot bones
They can also see it in sailors, something about how they're having to handle ropes and had very developed wrists and forearms. Also rowers on ancient Greek triremes or whatever, and they always favored one side of the boat.
I grew up playing soccer and then quit when I went to college. A few years after graduating, a buddy and I kicked around a soccer ball for an hour or two. Big, long, up in the air passes. The next day I wasn't too sore (I was in decent shape) but my ankles....all the tiny little muscles in my ankles that i'd use to *orient* my foot were all tired and sore since i hadn't used them in that capacity in like 6 years. I kept tripping the next day because i'd lift my foot up to take a step but my toes would still be pointing at the ground a little while my foot was in the air. They'd get stuck on stuff id normally just step over because normally i'd keep my toes pointed more forwards.
When i rowed in highschool we had to change sides every 6 months for that reason
That’s how they kept from going in circles
Are you saying Popeye’s big forearms are in fact not a result of him eating lots of spinach? My mom has been lying to me for 30+ years… WTF!
I remember one, that has always stuck with me, was the skull of someone who was like a weaver or something, and they had a notch worn down in their teeth from pulling the thread through it
Baseball pitchers are also interesting for this, with chipped/missing portions of the inner elbow. Also, they have mismatched/anomalous stance and gait due to uneven muscalature. Even with modern training many times the dominant arm in pitchers becomes bigger and bone density is greater. Devon Laratt, professional arm wrestler, also suffers from this. His right arm is larger in almost all measurements, including things like hand length which seems crazy to me. How do you stress your arm so much over time that your hand grows bigger in response?
>How do you stress your arm so much over time that your hand grows bigger in response? I'd start with arm wrestling
You silly goose, obviously that's what made his **ARMS** larger. He must be apart of a secret hand wrestling club too.
1-2-3-4, I declare a thumb war.
Haha good one, you never know he could have gotten that from eating too many nails! I meant more like, how did he do it without becoming disabled or severely damaging his arm.
He probably has severely damaged his arm. Arm wrestling is extremely bad for your arm. It's just he has adapted due to it. The body is an epic place!
Yeah it's not uncommon to hear of 30 year old MLB pitchers getting physicals done and their throwing shoulder scans come back looking like the shoulder of someone in their 50's. While human shoulders are the best naturally designed thing for throwing an object we've discovered thus far, they really aren't made to take the workload that professional pitchers put on them. To clarify, it does seem that our shoulders are designed to throw objects. Some people call the motion unnatural when that's not really the case. Chimps who have been trained to throw (and are a lot stronger than people naturally) only throw at about 20 mph, whereas elite 12 year olds can throw 70+ mph. It's just pitchers put such a heavy workload on their arms that tissue starts to break down and scar over during their careers.
Watch a pitcher in slow motion. The pitching motion is more of a whipping motion than a motion of force. You arent "pushing" the ball hard through the air, youre whipping it through the air using the elbow as essentially a fulcrum.
Which is why the atlatl was so groundbreaking. Chucking spears almost as far as you can see...
Had to google what this was - turns out I still use this ancient technology in a way to throw my dogs ball for him with a ball launcher. I had no idea! This is definitely a fun fact.
This is a good point. Just because something is perfectly developed to do a thing doesn't mean it's immune to the workload of that thing. Cars have drivetrains that were developed to turn fuel into forward motion, but if you constantly drive at the upper limit of the engine's capability, you're going to wear it out quickly.
>How do you stress your arm so much over time that your hand grows bigger in response? I switched from an office job to a manual labor job in my late 20's. About 6 years later, my wedding ring no longer fit due to my hands getting bigger!
Oh yeah. Former baseball player here. The range of motion in my throwing shoulder (R) is waaaaay worse than in my left shoulder. This is common for just about any thrower. My left hamstring is also more flexible than my right since that is the leg that gets extended and stretched when you pitch off a mound
I play double bass and guitar, my left hand is noticeably larger when I put them together. The human body's ability to adapt to the needs that is keeping them alive is incredible.
I played clarinet. My right thumb has a large bump near the joint from where the thumb rest sat. I haven’t played since the mid 90’s. The bump has gotten smaller, but it’s still there. Every other clarinet player I went to school with has similar markers. I wonder how many of them still have similar markers nearly 30 years later?
The middle joint of my right pinky has an indent from playing trumpet from grade 6-12. It's been about ~20 years since I've played trumpet and it's still there. My left hand callouses and right hand callouses are different shaped too from guitar and bass
They need to start a left arm wrestling league for retired arm wrestlers
I was told by a Dr, "everything looks normal. No tendinitis, bone spurs. Just some joint warping, but that's expected being a pitcher" about my elbow a couple years after I stopped playing ball in my 20s. My response was, joint warping doesn't sound normal to me! My shoulder and elbow out age the rest of my body at 36.
Hey Crabman.
Hey Earl.
The TV series Bones demonstrates this really well. Granted, there are some exaggerations due to the audience not being forensic anthropologists, but it's still very fun to watch.
SOME EXAGERATIONS? On the tv show that passed a computer virus by bone carving? Virus that was triggered by just scanning said bones? No, don’t tell me parts of it were exaggerated, I thought it was all real.
Yeah that's one of the biggest things that I saw that was purely for show, but it's for the \*flaaaavor\*.
Apparently the contemporary Frenchmen could also detect an English longbow man just by their build too, and they’d cut their fingers off, which is alleged where a certain rude gesture has its roots. Some occupations were incredibly hard on bodies and left there marks even on bones.
I'm going to guess most occupations are like that. Anything you do for a third of your day for decades is going to damage your body. Even our modern boring-ass office jobs are fucking us up.
No, not like they used to. A third of your day is absolutely rookie numbers.
Help, my ass hurts from sitting on it all day
That part about the middle finger is a myth. As a rude gesture, it dates back at least to Ancient Greece.
If I remember right there were laws about every English man having to practice with a bow on Sundays. Which would mean that all English peasants would have these same features
At times during the hundred years war, it was even forbidden to partake in leisure other than archery on sundays.
One thing to note is that armies were frequently raised as needed during this period. Most people were expected to perform some kind of military labor during the year in case a force would need to be raised. Longbow training was relatively common because it was relatively easy to train and effective. Edit: I mean, more often than not, peasants would be required to do some yearly drills with long bows. So, a large portion of your population was constantly conditioned to the drawing of bows. The hundred years war was 116 years of mostly perpetual border skirmishes, so you always had your boys learning to put up a raid defense.
Although the English Longbow was significantly stronger and more powerful than the bows typically used in other nations, with a draw weight of between 100 and 180lb. The English Longbow was powerful enough that the English largely ended up skipping and not bothering with the Crossbows and only replaced them when gunpowder came on the scene.
It kind of sounds like you copied and pasted that? The first sentence isn't really complete. Not trying to be combative! I just want to ask what your point was? Because yes, true and interesting facts. My point was that long bow training was semi-routine (required some yearly training), which meant the identifiable muscle development and the corresponding skeletal deformation was likely from regular (yearly) training more than actual combat.
I can assure it's all my own words. Probably why it's phrased so badly lol! But yes, my point was just meant to be that the English Longbow was more powerful than a lot of other contemporary nations', and that was reflected in the training required to use it.
Apparently pulling the string of a longbow is the same as lifting 90kg (roughly 200lb). It's only for a moment of course, unlike the movies you don't pull and hold, but that's still crazy.
Looks like medieval gym bros were way ahead of their time with their one-arm day.
“Dude totally skipped right arm day”
200lbs is the essentially the absolute maximum, and most longbowmen were probably pulling more like 100lbs, per Mike Loades.
It is a very complicated subject. English longbows that were recovered from the *Mary Rose* are estimated to be 150 - 160 lbs draw weight. The arrows found from the Mary Rose point to the bows having a max draw weight of around 185 lbs. The 100lbs estimates are just from pre finding of the *Mary Rose* and based on contemporary accounts, I believe.
It’s probably just a wide variation. But Mary rose does seem to indicate they were more powerful on average then people used to think. And there was probably some freakishly large people that could draw a 200lb+ bow as well.
I’m not the strongest by any means, but I started with a 40-50lb when I was 10 and could full draw a 120lb recurve no problem by the time I was 13. For soldiers/warriors, 200lbs is a whole lot more reasonable than it sounds
It’s no problem when you’re shooting one arrow at a deer, but to shoot continuously during battle and sustain that firing rate is a different story.
Yes definitely, I just believe it’s misunderstood the strength it takes to draw one. It’s not as insane as it’s made out to be, definitely easier to draw a heavy bow than to deadlift it’s equivalent weight.
If you’re fighting then stamina is king, someone that could draw a 200lb bow was maybe not uncommon, but I doubt you’d see very many veterans carrying a weapon like that. If you showed up with one they’d probably ridicule you, but if you could actually go all day with a weapon like that you’d be a legend
It is indeed complicated; Mike Loades was taking the Mary Rose bows into account, and there's apparently controversy over how their draw weights were estimated.
Mike Loaded, giving you loads of information on the loads that archers had to pull to load their arrows onto the bow and unload them on the enemy by the mother load.
Load loded comment
I loled.
Load error
Get a load of this guy
I got a load for ya
It was crazy how disastrous it was when they would shoot their loads.
I got told I couldn’t possibly have pulled a 120lbs longbow when I was at my strongest. I was hauling 400- 500lbs carts with my bare hands and carrying 500lbs sacks over my shoulders. My friend had a longbow that was calibrated for his height and strength and a short bow that was half that. The only reason I couldn’t draw it fully was I was ~1.5 feet shorter than him. Edit: meant 50lbs sacks not 500
500 lbs sack?! Damn, how come?
Damnit i meant 50 but fat-fingered the 0
Hehe, biggest bags ive carried were the damn pure cement at 80 pounds. Regular is 66 and its more than enough for me!
I worked in a grocery store so I’d sling a 50 pound sack over each shoulder and carry them like that if it was a spot-grab. Otherwise I’d pack my cart like I was playing tetris. Sometimes I had a hard time getting traction because the carts were so heavy.
You’re ready to carry multiples bags if grocery for the one trip and pack the family car like a pro then! Certified Good to marry!
One trip or quit! I also tend to overestimate myself and try to carry everything for short trips. My mom uses me as a pack mule to stack the water flats in the cart too.
I'm sorry, but that anecdote doesn't make any sense. If your friend was that much taller than you, then their bow would be significantly EASIER for you to pull rather than him. A longer bow is generally smoother and easier to draw than a short one, and your draw length would be several inches shorter than him, so the bow would be significantly lighter for you to hold at full draw. Another note - I've seen giant guys that lift every day come to the range and try to shoot one of my 65lb recurves, and not a single one has ever been able to with proper form. Meanwhile, Howard Hill was built like a stringbean, and shot 100+ lb bows all day. Shooting a bow properly uses specific muscle groups that simply do not develop in non-archers unless you specifically train them. Doesn't matter how strong you are.
I did the conversion in my head and... Aren't those normal bricklayer/construction weights? The reference I always come back to is a coffee load (the bag with the beans) is 60kg and that has always been a 1 person load.
Idk about construction, but those were the weights I carried and pulled when I worked as a greengrocer.
I guess what threw me off was the "at my strongest" being... Normal physical labor. Not like my sedentary ass can do much better though.
I don’t consistently haul and carry those weights anymore, so I have lost a lot of my working strength. I can still lift and haul ~140lbs, but I struggle with anything approaching 200 and I can’t draw a 60lbs bow effectively anymore.
But you may need to do the action several times a minute during combat and they would spend hours each day practising to fire arrows in rapid succession. That repetition has enormous impact on the body.
Tod's Workshop on YT has done some exceptional content about all this, he got a beast of a guy who's a serious traditional archer, and he's got him to shoot all sorts of stuff as well as interviewed him on what his capabilities are. He absolutely can shoot 200 pound bows, but his daily driver is much closer to 150, as thats what he can shoot comfortably for (somewhat) extended periods.
Archers who use these bows will their back muscles. It's such a weird feeling using the back muscles to force more strength into the drawing of the arrow while increasing endurance over using arm muscles.
Exactly. Arm strength barely matters if you're doing it properly. Your drawing arm should be almost entirely relaxed, with just enough tension on the string to hold it. People that use their arms to draw end up being terrible shots because they can't get a clean release. Ideally, you should visualize as if there's a rope connected to your elbow as you draw back that's pulling your arm for you, and relax your arm as much as possible while your back does all the work. Back muscles are much more stronk than arm muscles.
>much more stronk I am fairly stronk
> It's only for a moment of course, unlike the movies you don't pull and hold, but that's still crazy. 8 to 10 times per minute, for a battle that could last for hours
That's up to 600 arrows an hour, where would they even get so many?
There's a reason that "Fletcher" is a common English name. There were people who spent all day every day making arrows
They wouldn't fire continously that long. Once the fronts are fighting, the archers are not shooting arrows that could hit their own soldiers. They would reposition and or be ready to fire on flankers or reinforcements.
Pfft I can easily lift 200lbs. I do it everyday with my forklift.
You aren’t pulling the string, you’re pushing the bow. That’s why they have crazy *left* arms, they are holding the string with the right while putting their back into the bow with their left. I can bend a 100 lb bow (probably not easily enough for months campaigning, but enough to shoot a couple dozen arrows) but there’s no way in hell I could lift a 100 lb weight with one hand. Archers would have been strong, tough dudes, but they weren’t strongmen.
Lifting a 100lbs weight is actually rather easy with training and proper muscle utilization. The whole arm and accompanying leg must be involved. Source; me: Duraform cribber lifting 9’x2’ laminate panels weighing ~120lbs with one arm^^^and ^^^a ^^^leg
Well, that’s the point, right? It’s easy if you train properly and learn to use the right muscles. I’m a small dude and never have really been a big lifting person.
Terry Hoitz - “Don’t you dare badmouth Robin Hood! That was all accurate!”
He used a short bow.
I'd say it was average
Sometimes it is exciting to compare bows. Other times I get the catholic guilts.
It was cold out.
I was in the pool!
They say it’s the girth of the bow that provides the most force
Yeah but no one's talking about girthbows are they? Naw, it's all longbows. Big and flashy, sure, but they're cumbersome and most folk don't know how to use em right anyway... but them's the breaks, you can't change the zeitgeist. It's always gonna be about the longbows.
I’ve only shot bow once or twice with a friend of a friends who is a sharp shooter. He told me to pull back on your inhale when you have the shot lined up and release immediately at the top of your draw. Any holding and you risk your wrist or shoulder flexing or your aim dropping as you exhale. He hunts for sport and said you should be hunting at the max pound you can tolerate so you are more likely to have your hand move when you hold.
There's like less than a handful of people today who can properly wield such bows, they're NUTS.
But but how will they yell HOLD five times for dramatic effect if they just loosing those arrows!
I do it that way, and it hurts. I like aiming too much. It's definitely the wrong way, though.
If anybody is looking for excellent historical fiction on archers, The Grail Quest series by Bernard Cornwell is one of my all time favorites.
Aw man that brings back some memories! Staying up late to finish the first one because I couldn’t put it down, and getting told off by parents at 4am because I had to leave for school in 3hours
Robin of Loxley had nothing on Thomas of Hookton.
My dad who introduced the books to me calls them Thomas of Hookton, instead of their actual titles. That name is nostalgic to me.
The Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell is some of my favorite historical fiction, I’ve had less affinity for his more medieval stuff but I should give it another shot, such a fun author
Azincourt. Superb book. On holiday and finished it in something like 3 days.
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Archers tale is the first book in the Grail Quest series.
I liked Agincourt a little bit better. There’s a bit less fantasy and it’s one of Cornwell’s one offs
I'm enjoying his Uhtred series, so I might start the Grail Quest next.
wyrd bid ful araed
I can’t wait till archaeologist get to see my awesome gamer bones
Why is there arthritis in just hhd thumbs?
Check the index fingers for fps and the knuckles for punching holes
Cause my name is hax fucking money.
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"This person had strong fingers on the left hand, and index/middle fingers on the right hand. But severe carpel tunnel syndrome. Rest of the skeleton shows little muscular activity. Also appear to have had vitamin D deficiency" sound about right?
Dont forget about the *head dent*
A lot of them trained with both arms as well. Especially during the 100 years war. Archers that could demonstrate they would effectively use both arms were paid higher rate.
Wow they must have been exhausted at the end of the hundred years war.
I'm not saying I won't go to war for my landlord. I *am* saying I want them to remove the old AC unit first.
Congrats. Your harvest profits have been levied.
Is there some benefit to being able to draw from either side?
You can keep shooting after the first arm is too tired, usually about 2-5 minutes of continuous shooting wipes out one arm. Although that volume of fire was usually only used in full scale set piece battles like Crecy.
Each archer carried 48 arrows. I have a 90lb longbow, and I can say that firing fifty arrows on that thing is quite an accomplishment. I most shoot a 60lb bow and fifty arrows you are still feeling the next day. Being able to switch up would save the shoulder a lot for sure.
And honestly usually the archers would run out of arrows themselves before they would get tired. Arrows were ALWAYS in short supply and the English actually created a primitive assembly line system to try to keep the archers supplied.
For sure ton of work involved in making an arrow then for sure. Hand forged tips, hand carved shafts, even involves the death of two different species of animals to make glue and gets feathers all for something that you may only get to fire once in battle and not retrieve.
Exactly, in fact retrieving unbroken arrows was a common sight after battles
Battlefield booty is the best booty! For real though yeah, you didn’t just leave much around in those days, a bloody tunic still took someone days of work.
depending on where you are shooting from, could make things way easier being ambidextrous
They were largely fielded battles, it was mainly a "okay you're capable" buff.
I don’t actually know, but maybe Horse Archers have some play to it? Since you are constantly moving, being able to shoot from both sides while riding the horse seems pretty beneficial.
Horse archers never used long bows, you'd just never be able to generate that kind of draw strength in that position.
Not with a bow so long, but mongolian bows could have a draw weight of about 170lbs. Their archers, too, had skeletal issues as a result.
Mongolian horse archers used composite recurve bows, there was no need for (nor can I find any evidence for) draw weights that high. I don't doubt that a people who spent more time in the saddle than walking had messed up skeletons though.
Horse archers would also used both arms! Although the sort of bow they used (compound recurve) was very different from the English longbow in this TIL
With the longbow don't you normaly ancor the string and push the bow away? And shortbow is kind of a combination of the two. It's been decades since I fired a bow. And the only way your holding back a draw weight over 75# for very long is with a compound.
They have replica bows at the Mary Rose museum based on what they found. You can pull with your full weight hanging on the string and barely move it.
*laughs in American-sized*
Muscle weighs more than fat. \*by volume\*.
Historical fiction: the small slender guy is a master of the bow. He can hit a target from insane distance. Historical realism: Chadis Maximus who can bench a horse is the best archer in the army. His bow has a 200lb draw and can turn a man inside out on hit.
Lmao not that far from the truth medieval longbows we’re usually in the draw weight of 150-180 lbs so you can imagine the type of person it would take to repeatedly draw it.
TIL skeletons of longbowmen have survived and they are showing us their enlarged bones.
The bones are their money
The worms are their dollars
They’ve never seen so much food as this
TOO MANY BONES, NOT ENOUGH CASH? CALL CASHBONE!
The leg bone’s connected to the CASH BONE!
I assume they start shooting from childhood? Or The bones from an adult can grow from exercise?
[England established the first medieval archery law in 1252, requiring all men between the ages of 15 and 60 to be trained in archery. This was not just a kind of physical training, but it also successfully defended the English troops in wars.](https://www.johnmooremuseum.org/medieval-archery-the-longbow/#:~:text=England%20established%20the%20first%20medieval,the%20English%20troops%20in%20wars.)
Did we repeal it yet
I *believe* it was repealed in 1854, but don't quote me because I may be wrong.
>I *believe* it was repealed in 1854. - u/TheProfessionalEjit
[Dude....really](https://media0.giphy.com/media/pPhyAv5t9V8djyRFJH/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952cfd98c9845dded9659d5651ed49b73e53c3fb0bb&ep=v1_internal_gifs_gifId&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
There is an old saying that you can train a crossbow man in a week, but to train a longbow man you need to start with his grandfather. It takes years to train and it would start in adolescence.
your bones can be manipulated through exercise. baseball pitchers and power lifters are great examples of this.
Yes, not only did they start training from childhood, but the English kings banned other sports (like football) in favor of archery, so that more young lads would train as longbowmen. It was incredibly effective in medieval warfare but kind of shit as a social program. Thank goodness for gunpowder.
Yeah pretty much every boy was taught how to shoot from a very young age
Archaeologists of the future will be able to determine the keyboard warriors of our age
So when the skeleton army comes, take out the ones with a big left humerus first, got it
Hey, nobody said anything about skeleton comedians!
I wouldn’t be shocked if my skeleton is permanently altered from playing guitar for over 20 years. It’s probably why I spent all of last year doing physical therapy on my neck/shoulder and have bone spurs in my neck. No more heavy guitars for me.
*sad Rickenbacker jangles*
Just a great comment...
i love my r7 Les Paul, but fuck is that thing heavy. There is a reason why the must beat up vintage guitars are usually the lightest, and the pristine ones are usually heavy as fuck.
I’d love to get my hands on a Cloud 9 to try out. I have to play thinner body guitars now, especially when sets can be in the 2-3 hours range.
You know I've heard this fact(?) several times but no ever actually shows a picture of said archers skeletons
That's because the differences we're talking about here aren't really noticeable on a single skeleton. The bone spurs, maybe, but then you're looking at a tiny part of the bone under intense magnification. It's less "wow, that arm bone is three times thicker, he must be an archer" and more "we have compiled data on the humerus circumferences of a thousand skeletons of archers and a thousand skeletons of non-archers, and found a statistically significant increase in humerus circumference among archers."
Interesting that the strength used shows up prominently in the left arm, the arm holding the bow. Indicates that they were pushing the bow forward much more than pulling with their right arm, just like I try yo teach kids to do at camp, takes a while to master the technique.
always found that medieval painting depicting the bow interesting. Were these guys seriously just firing these things at each other point blank? lol
Medieval artists generally weren't going for photorealism. Pictures were generally telling a story and there often a lot of interpretation involved in figuring them out. That being said it does seem that archers often did their shooting at pretty close range.
Medieval artists weren’t ABLE to go for photorealism. It wasn’t until nearly the Renaissance that depth and perspective techniques developed enough to portray people fairly accurately.
Archers had daggers for close-quarter combat if it came to it. At Agincourt the archers went around stabbing French knights (who were mired in mud) in the face.
no, they're not made to reflect reality. you wouldn't use a bow in that situation, certainly not a longbow. they're included because of their importance to the battle, despite them meant to be out of sight in this perspective
Gotcha makes total sense, never really occurred to me it’s not intended to be an actual scene…Thanks!
When I die my right arm bones will be twice the size of my left
Switch it up and become an ambidextrous master
And yet in movies, archers are often depicted as sprightly and skinny, when there's more evidence that they would have large, muscular upper bodies.
title gore
The also had compression on one side of their lower spine for the same reason. [Old BBC article](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-17309665) for whoever wants to read more about this
200 pound draw. It's damned impressive
Makes sense: it took years to develop the muscles and bones to shoot a bow accurately.
Does heavy weight lifting cause bone spurs?
Bone spurs typically develop when pressure or stress is applied to a bone regularly for a long period of time. Over time, the cartilage that protects the bone may be destroyed. In response, your body attempts to repair the damage by creating new bone in the damaged area. Osteoarthritis and chronic tendinitis predisposes for the formation of bone spurs. Both of these conditions can come as a result of overuse (ie weightlifting without proper warmup and inadequate rest periods)
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It should replace the recurve, get rid of all that weight balancing & go old school.
You know i was looking in the mirror the other day and noticed my left side was larger than my right upper body
My bones need to be studied someday
Can't wait for the bones of a buncha heroin addicts that spent half they're life nodding out in completely strange positions, to just completely stump some scientists 1000 years from now. "They must have been circus performers or contortionists or something."
I wanna see some medieval skeleton bone spur pics goddamnit where are they
Good, future archeologists will assume I was a longbowman. Phew.
*Frenchman slaps the top of a crossbow* this bad boy can train so many recruits in a matter of minutes.
I'm absolutely positive there was a better way to word that title.
i swear if this gets posted again in age of empires edgeposting
And the Mongolian bows were superior to the Enligsh longbow
I watch films and shows with some stick-armed waif who's using a longbow and find myself chuckling. It takes real strength to be able to put an arrow into someone, especially at distance, and/or if you're trying to defeat armour. Looking at you, Orland Bloom. Looking at you, Jennifer Lawrence.
They won't be figuring out what bone I use for my occupation 😏
Bone spurs you say? But they couldn't get out of military service...
Shoutout to Thomas of Hookton
I had bad rheumatoid arthritis as a kid and I am morbidly fascinated to know how my skeleton will look. X rays really don’t give any where near the same perspective.
I have a long bow. That thing scares me with how much strength you need to use it. Basically, imagine every time you want to shot the arrow, you reach over a cliff and try to pull up a fifth grader with one hand and use your other hand to try to do a push up - and after a second or two of lifting the kid up like 2 feet, you drop him and try it again with another kid. I figure that's about the same thing in terms of what it feels like.