Train Like a Warrior #2: The English Longbowman

Important Note: What follows is the second chapter of my book “Train Like a Warrior” which is collection of essays discussing the historical context, equipment, and fighting styles of a variety of warriors from history (from the Roman legionaries to the ashigaru of feudal Japan), and how I would go about training someone to fill those roles using modern methods.

You can get a Kindle or paperback version of the book from Amazon here.

Now for the complete second chapter…

Per the title, we are going to look at a warrior who would seldom find himself up close and personal with his enemy:

The English longbowman.

However.

The fact he’d usually be positioned behind the main battle line made him no less of a warrior than the chaps who did the stabby bits on the medieval battlefield.

Indeed, you could be forgiven for thinking the Longbowman would be less physically robust than the frontline fighters seeing as he was supposed to stay out of hand-to-hand combat, but you’d be wrong.

Why?

The English Longbowman was as jacked and strong as an Ox thanks to his weapon of choice; the longbow.

The English longbow was the pre-eminent ranged weapon in Europe from at least the late 13th century until well into the age of gunpowder.

Believe it or not, the consensus among historians is the English longbow was not actually English at all. It was, in fact, first used against them by Welsh archers during the Anglo-Norman conquest of Wales (1).

So impressed were these proto-Englishmen by the killing power of the longbow in the hands of a trained user, they conscripted the Welsh longbowmen into their army before going off to kill a bunch of Scotsmen.

Furthermore, the longbow, along with its mechanised cousin, the crossbow, were the driving forces behind the infantry revolutions of the 12-1500s (2). These weapons provided the means to kill armoured knights quickly, effectively, cheaply, and at scale.

Prior to their introduction, armies in the Dark and Middle Ages consisted of a core of armoured knights supported by light infantry and skirmishers whose role was basically to die providing a screen to allow the knights to get into combat.

But give a peasant a crossbow, or, better yet, a longbow, and you’ve got a soldier who is more than capable of instantly killing a knight on horseback – years of training and pricey, made-to-measure armour be damned. (So perturbed were the ruling elite that illiterate peasants could slaughter them in droves, the crossbow was banned by Pope Urban II.) (3)

Anyway.

Remember how I said the longbow is even better at killing knights than the crossbow?

Well, this is because it had a much higher rate of fire, had a longer range, and was far more accurate.

There was, however, a downside:

It took a lifetime to master.

Alas, the training required to make a longbowman effective on the battlefield was at least equal to that of a knight and so, was not undertaken by each and every man of fighting age as is so often assumed (4).

Your average medieval peasant, whilst deadly with a crossbow had neither the time nor health to develop the strength and skill required to shoot the longbow with enough force to pierce plate armour.

Consequently, it was largely the purview of the Yeomanry (the feudal equivalent of the middle class). The Yeomanry were generally landowners and held roles of some status within society such as a guard, attendant or junior official. This meant they had free time to practice and access to the halfway decent food and living conditions needed to support their training.

It was this need for year-round training that eventually killed off the longbow when firearms were introduced. (Believe it or not, the longbow was a significantly more efficient and deadly weapon than most firearms that were produced before 1850 or so.)

However, due to the relentless march of industrialisation and the movement of the middle classes from the countryside into the cities, the available pool of people capable of using the longbow under battlefield conditions became too small for it to continue to see widespread use as a weapon of war.

Developing the skill to hit a target aside, the main problem was, drawing a longbow is damn hard. The average longbow had a draw weight of 90-110lbs, though modern reproductions have been effectively used with draw weights of 180-185lbs.

I know nothing about archery and have never fired a bow before so this didn’t mean a whole lot to me. So, I asked my friend who loves his archery and he says that to effectively use a bow with such a heavy draw weight repeatedly is a mammoth task. (For reference, the internet says men’s modern competition bows have draw weights of between 45 and 55 lbs.) (5)

The repeated drawing and firing of such a tremendously stiff bowstring had a profound effect on the archer’s anatomy. Skeletons of archers from the time show marked thickening of the left forearm and elbow as well as the three middle fingers of the right hand, along with a host of spinal deformities caused by the stresses from a lifetime of shooting a longbow.

Another common injury seen in many skeletons of longbowmen is os acromiale – where the acromion (a bone at the end of the clavicle) fails to fuse to the clavicle (6).

How to train like an English longbowman

Silliness involving stability balls and repeated, vague references to “core strength” aside, I have discovered some helpful information we can use to inform an effective training programme for our hypothetical modern-day Yeoman.

So, our guy needs…

• A low resting heartrate. There’s good evidence to show that a lower resting heart rate improves accuracy. To hit a target at range you need to shoot from a stable platform so any jitteriness is a bad thing. Hence, when shooting athletes fail drug tests they’re found to have taken beta-blockers or other meds that lower the heart rate. As I have a zero-tolerance policy on performance-enhancing drugs of ANY kind, we’re going to have to get that heart rate down with good old-fashioned cardio.
• Obscene pulling power. Drawing a bow is hard. Drawing a bow repeatedly and firing it effectively is harder still. Powerful lats, traps and arms are the order of the day here and isometric as well as concentric strength will be needed in huge doses.
• Shoulders like boulders. The shoulders will take a beating from pulling and firing a bow. Making them big, strong, and resilient is the essential.
• Superb levels of “all round” strength. Strength is never a disadvantage, least of all on a battlefield when you’re trying to kill the other guy before he kills you.

Now I present…

The English Longbowman Programme

Monday

AM

1. Archery Practice
2. 2-Mile Run

PM

1. Deadlifts
   •  3×5
2. Barbell Row
   • 3×5
3. Barbell Curls
   • 50 total reps

Tuesday

AM

1. Archery Practice
2. 2-Mile Run

PM

1. Bench Press
   • 3×5
2. Squat
   • 3×10
3. Dips
   • 50 total reps

Wednesday

AM

1. Archery Practice
2. 2-Mile Run

PM

1. 5 Hill Sprints

Thursday

AM

1. Archery Practice
2. 2-Mile Run

PM

1. Weighted Chinups
   • 3×5
2. Barbell Shrugs
   • 3×5
3. Barbell Curls
   • 3×5

Friday

AM

1. Archery Practice
2. 2-Mile Run

PM

1. Barbell Press
   • 3×5
2. Barbell Squat
   • 3×10
3. Dips
   • 50 total reps

Saturday

REST

Sunday

REST

To conclude

English longbowmen were nails who single-handedly changed the face of European warfare forever.

Not bad for a bit of wood, cow horn and string.

References:

1 – No Author, No date. The Longbow.

Available online from: http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Longbow [accessed 25/05/2017].

2,4 – Britannica (2012). The Infantry Revolution c.1200-1500. Available online from: https://www.britannica.com/technology/military-technology/The-infantry-revolution-c-1200-1500 [accessed 25/05/2017].

3 – Editor (2012). The Crossbow- A medieval Doomsday Device? Available (online) from: http://militaryhistorynow.com/2012/05/23/the-crossbow-a-medieval-wmd [accessed 25/05/2017].

5 – Reiley PJ (2016). Olympic Archery Explained: Draw Weight. Available online from: http://www.lancasterarchery.com/blog/olympic-archery-explained-draw-weight [accessed 25/05/2017].

6 – Mary Rose Museum (undated). The Men of the Mary Rose. Available online from: http://www.maryrose.org/discover-our-collection/her-crew/the-people-on-board [accessed 25/05/2017].

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