In kyudo a callus often forms on the bow hand

The summary today

The only data date from 1971 and concern kyudo, Japanese archery. A group of orthopaedic surgeons sent a questionnaire to 122 practitioners aged 18 to 78, then examined and X-rayed the 30 who reported the most marked complaints: in almost all of these thirty the examination finds a callus on the bow hand, the left, from the inner side of the joint at the base of the thumb to the web between thumb and index finger, the area in contact with the bow. The "almost all" therefore refers to thirty people chosen because they had complaints, not to the 122 who answered the questionnaire or to kyudo archers in general, and the study gives no percentage and does not say after how many years of practice the callus appears. In the same examination other findings in the hand are few: six cases of pain in the long abductor of the thumb, one trigger finger, one stenosing tenosynovitis. The finding does not carry over by itself to the Olympic recurve, where the grip is shaped and the hand works differently, and the bibliography holds no measurement made there.

Also phrased as: "kyudo callus"; "callus on the bow-hand thumb"; "skin of the bow hand"; "the bow hand in kyudo"

Evidence

• 1971
  For Kyudo archers Published later

  A questionnaire to 122 kyudo practitioners aged 18 to 78, with the left hand on the bow; examination and X-rays for the 30 with the most marked complaints. In almost all of these thirty the examination finds a callus, from the inner side of the metacarpophalangeal joint of the left thumb to the web between the fingers. The study gives no percentage, and the finding concerns a subgroup chosen for its complaints, not the whole sample.

  An orthopaedical analysis of the kyudo athlete · Masanobu Tomizawa, Hitoshi Furuya, Sadayoshi Toriyama, Tadahiko ONO

• 1971
  Context Kyudo archers Published later

  In the same examination of the 30, other findings in the hand are few: 6 cases of pain in the long abductor of the thumb, 1 trigger finger and 1 stenosing tenosynovitis. In the questionnaire, 53 of the 122 had reported complaints in the hand and fingers, without the study saying which. The callus is an adaptation of the skin, not a disorder.

  An orthopaedical analysis of the kyudo athlete · Masanobu Tomizawa, Hitoshi Furuya, Sadayoshi Toriyama, Tadahiko ONO

Status history

1. 1971 Reported A questionnaire reaches 122 kyudo practitioners, and the 30 with the most marked complaints are examined and X-rayed: in almost all of them the examination finds a callus on the bow hand, from the inner side of the joint at the base of the thumb to the web between the fingers. Other findings in the hand are few: six cases of pain in the long abductor of the thumb, one trigger finger, one stenosing tenosynovitis. One descriptive study, on one discipline, and on thirty people chosen because they had complaints: reported.

Related

Related articles

• Hands, fingers and calluses: skin, small vessels and injuries in archers who shoot a lotHarder skin, calluses, the small vessels of the fingers and acute injuries: what studies have measured in archers' hands, and how firm the findings are.

Research lines

• 17 studiesJapanese studies of kyudo from 1964 to 2025
• 25 studiesArchery injuries: what research has measured since 1971

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