What a lifetime of archery does to the human body

Ohhhhh… I get it! A lifetime of archery as the archer! A lifetime as the target is much shorter, but also does things to the human body…

10 Likes

Bonus points for an actual happy mutant on BoingBoing.

13 Likes

i kept being distracted by his GLORIOUS, inspiring mustache and beard…

2 Likes

Truck driving has been known to have cumulative effects, though perhaps not extending to the skeletal level.
trucker-damage-face_web

10 Likes

Reminds me of one of the characters from The Lady in the Water.

(WARNING: Do not actually watch The Lady in the Water.)

6 Likes

That’s usually a reference to a specific suit of armor in the Tower, being somewhat incorrectly generalized. Rigid plate armors have to be pretty well fitted or they will hurt you, and some fighters (John of Gaunt comes to mind) had much heavier shields than swords, so their shield arm was likely bigger.

Personally, after about 20 years of combat sports and martial arts, I developed disproportionately large triceps in both arms. Biceps are pulling, lifting muscle, very useful to weightlifters and stevedores, while triceps are striking and hammering muscles, useful for anyone delivering force. As I’ve aged and had less time for vigorous combat, this hypertrophy has declined.

EDIT: Oh, and I’ve always used my fists for pushups, opening doors, minor demolition work and whatnot* so I have the characteristic bone deformations that produces.

* whatnot specifically includes makiwara boards :slight_smile:

6 Likes

Now that I think of it, I remember a guy who was into boffer weapons and I guess it would have been an early type of LARPING, had a guy who had a big club, and he ended up having one arm larger.

1 Like

Which also led to the inaccurate belief that armor was clumsy and immobilizing.

1 Like

Is it THAT bad? It looks kind of charming, and I thought his other early movies were flawed rather than bad. But whenever I even mention it people just, like, breath in sharply or writhe subtly in remembrance of suffering.

1 Like

The Conan movies, anime and the Warhammer figures have had a strange influence on LARPs and medieval sport combat societies. Nowadays you’ll see guys with just ridiculously overlarge weapons that you’d never see prior to 1980 or thereabouts. <insert overcompensation joke here> Form over function.

And bringing it full circle, I guess, Mike Craughwell now makes real weapons that are completely ridiculous (although admittedly he makes 'em pretty!) for a living.

Yup, truly well fitted armor feels light (because the weight is distributed) and flexible (because it articulates where your personal body bends). If it doesn’t fit well, it’ll likely will give you some black, purple and green marks the SCAdians call “armor bites”.

6 Likes

I mean, you probably won’t get cancer from watching it or anything, but M. Night Shayamalan DID make one of the characters a movie critic who is explicitly written to represent how stupid and hubristic movie critics are for daring to judge another person’s creative work.

Also Shayamalan himself plays a genius writer whose opus is literally destined to save humanity.

I kind of got the impression he was working some issues out in that one.

10 Likes

TV news camera guys have fucked up shoulders and backs.

1 Like

Trigger warning! Or whatever you call it when you do that thing with a bow and arrow.

2 Likes

And many other musicians.

6 Likes

It may be anecdotal, but I do recall a discussion about barmaids in the UK developing an… imbalance… in their breast sizes, when pulling pints in the traditional manner for years:

1 Like

Oh, and I used to work with a woman who had been in the Ice Capades; her feet were one heck of a mess. So dancers too.

2 Likes

Yeah, I upon reading the headline I thought “Well, duh. It puts holes in you where the important stuff leaks out.”

3 Likes

Rowers - those using sweep oars - they typically spend their whole ‘careers’ sitting on one side of the boat, I believe. And it doesn’t take a lifetime - I knew a guy at school who rowed, and he clearly had more muscle mass on one side than the other…

Probably worse when it’s the only form of exercise a person does.

1 Like

As a kid I learned from reading my grandmother’s ladies’ magazines that this would happen from carrying my purse or bookbag on the same shoulder every day.

1 Like

@Papasan

Bartending near ended my wrists

Former bartender, former tennis player, former horse wrangler. I’m ambulatory, but I walk like this:

5 Likes