Archery equipment is very rich. There are a bunch of scopes, sights, stabilizers, and so on that you can use to enhance your archery experience. However, there’s another thing that not many aspiring archers think about when they first start, though it may be needed. That piece of equipment is gloves. But, do you need gloves for archery?
Gloves aren’t mandatory for archery, but they can still enhance your archery experience. They are especially important for practicing, as the strings will hurt your fingers eventually after many reps.
Let’s first take a look at different archery accessories and equipment. Then, we can get into more detail into why gloves are important when practicing archery.
Basic Equipment For Archery
When you are just starting to practice archery, you will want to have two basic things: first is, of course, the bow; the second is the arrows. However, as you continue practicing, you will need more than those two. As you start to get more serious, you’ll begin to realize that you need gloves, scopes, and sights to improve your archery skills.
Once your practice starts intensifying, you will need gloves. They will be an essential part of your equipment, as they protect your fingers and will give you more control of the arrow and bow. Unlike other pieces of equipment, you will need gloves to improve your skills significantly.
It will become increasingly difficult to use a bow if you aren’t protecting your fingers, among other pressure points that are affected by archery practice. You may have a scope and sights, but it won’t make much difference if you don’t have any strength in your fingers left to shoot. This is especially true if you are hunting for a few hours at the time.
So, as when you have to have a functional safety clip on your crossbow when you plan to hunt, you will also want to have great gloves when you are going out hunting. If you don’t, you will suffer a lot more and reduce your ability to shoot your bow in the long run.
The need for gloves is real. You can still have great results without gloves, but if you are buying essential equipment, you will want to have gloves as the principal piece of your archery equipment.
Need For Gloves
Gloves are much needed for beginners and pros alike. When you have a good pair of archery gloves, it will be much easier for you to shoot your bow. After a prolonged shooting, your fingers will become stiff, granting you pain and numbness from overuse.
Therefore, you will need something to protect your fingers, so you can have a fresh shot whether you have been shooting your bow for five minutes or two hours. You will want to protect your fingers at all times.
After a while, you may not necessarily need gloves when you shoot. By that point, your hands would have become accustomed to shooting, and your hands would have developed calluses in places that have been prone to repeated friction from practicing archery. In this case, you would also no longer feel pain when shooting your bow.
However, beginners likely won’t have that kind of thick skin in their fingers when starting out; therefore, they would need gloves. Of course, you can still develop your hands without gloves, but the pain will be much greater if you aren’t using them.
After all, it’s not just amateurs and novice archers that have elected to use gloves—professional archers who plan to shoot for competitions also need to protect their fingers and get the most out of their shots.
The thing you need to get here is that protecting your fingers will help you greatly in landing the best shots you can get. The problem though, is that without correct finger protection, you will likely miss on that chance to have a far better shot.
If you are shooting short arrows, you have to wear gloves or you put yourself at risk for a rather serious injury. We talked more about this here.
Protecting Your Fingers
The reason why you want to protect your fingers is because you need your fingers to continue shooting. When you are shooting your bow, you will be mainly using your core, back, and arm muscles to perform the shot. However, there’s another thing you will want to use when you are shooting the bow.
Those other things are fingers. You will be using your fingers to hold the bow, restrain the arrow, and hold the arrow when you are drawing it back. With all of these actions in mind, you will definitely want to protect those fingers because they will be what you will use to steer the arrow.
Arrows can easily cut and hurt your fingers depending on how they were built and what they are made of. If they are made from special and sharp materials, they will be much harder to use, likely resulting in more injuries to your fingers.
So, you have to protect your fingers to get the most out of archery. Only if you have proper protection for your fingers, you’ll soon be able to shoot practice, compete, and hunt without any problems.
So, if you are looking to improve your archery skills today, you’ll have to get gloves. Of course, you can shoot arrows without them, and you certainly won’t need them to fire a crossbow.
What you’ll really need is protection that will help you maintain the flow of your shots while making most out of every archery session you take. That’s the greatest benefit of gloves. So, get yourself a highly rated and tough archery glove, such as this one.
Benefits Of Gloves
The gloves have the sole purpose of protecting your fingers. When you use gloves, you will have full protection on your fingers, and you will be able to shoot longer than before.
When you are starting out with archery, you can achieve more by protecting your fingers. Such a thought may sound counterintuitive at first, considering that, if your fingers harden, you’ll be able to shoot more in the long run. However, you will suffer much more if you are practicing without gloves.
So, if you are using gloves, you will benefit much more than if you were practicing without them. Therefore, make sure you get even the most basic of gloves to make the most out of the practice.
If you don’t believe in the effectiveness of the gloves, try to think of it in this way—your fingers, along with your arms, shoulders, and back, will hurt after excessive use. As you build muscle, those pains will eventually subside; however, the pin in your fingers will end up lasting the longest.
Even if you build up the muscle and get some form, you won’t be able to practice if your fingers are hurting you. So, your first instinct should be to stack up on equipment.
To see how an expert weighs the benefits of archery gloves, check out this video:
Stack Up On Equipment
Now, the only thing that’s left is to stack up on equipment. Investing in archery equipment is mandatory if you want to progress. When you are starting any hobby, especially sport for that matter, you want to buy equipment. If you don’t have the proper equipment, you won’t be able to get the most out of your practice.
So, when you go on and venture to buy your first bow, you need to get those gloves. Yet, you shouldn’t get it wrong. When you are practicing, you’ll still be able to shoot your bow even without arrows, however, you won’t be able to make the most out of it without your gloves.
Still, the other thing that works in the favor of you buying the gloves would be that you want to stop your fingers from hurting. After all, it’s all about how you manage through training and through learning.
Maybe you can do it without it, and maybe you can’t. In a sense, you can, but it would be far better to protect your finger and get the most out of it.
Keep Practicing
The whole thing depends on how much you practice. The more you practice, the more pain you’ll be able to sustain when you are shooting your bow. Most important of all, when you are shooting, your fingers will begin to harden and feel much lighter.
So, whether you buy equipment or not won’t matter in the end. It will start to matter in the beginning—if you miss those steps, you will miss out on the chance to improve your skills significantly, thus missing on the chance to enjoy archery.
When you go to buy archery equipment, make sure to save some money for gloves. Without them, your experience won’t be the same. If you are still having doubts, you should think about archery as you would any other sport.
Without golfing gloves, it would be much tougher to golf and keep your grip, which is quite similar with archery gloves. Just because they aren’t the main part of the archery attire doesn’t mean they aren’t important.
Gloves are more important than anything. They’ll give you a far better shot, so go out and get them.