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There are three distinct styles of archery, each with its own kind of equipment. The traditional style is called Long Bow and consists of a simple wooden bow of 'D' shaped section. As suggested by the name the bows are longer than those used in other styles. Mine are about my own height 5' 4" (163 cm) but men’s bows are often longer than this. The arrows have wooden shafts and feather fletchings for guidance. The whole emphasis in this style is keeping the traditions of the past. Much of the shooting is done 'two-way', meaning that a row of targets are set up at each end of a range and the archers all shoot in one direction, then collect their arrows from the targets and next time shoot in the opposite direction toward the other set of targets. The material used for bowstrings used to be hemp or linen, which is relatively inelastic and is good for delivering a better proportion of the bow’s energy into the speed of the arrow. However this kind of bowstring can cause greater wear and tear to the old bows and also has a tendency to break. This can result in even more damage and often complete breakage of the bows. So a concession to the traditional style is the allowance of more modern string materials such a Dacron, which is more elastic, and the more modern Fast-Flight and Dyneema which have much less tendency to break.

The style of equipment used in the Olympic competitions is known as the recurve bow. This has flat rectangular section limbs generally made from gluing together laminations of glass fibre, carbon fibre, ceramic, wood or foam. The result is a very efficient transfer of the energy from the bow into the arrow resulting in very much faster arrow flight and so lower trajectory, but the design also has to retain stability and control to maintain the required accuracy. The bow limbs are described as recurve. This is because the curve of each limb is concave away from the archer at the point where it leaves the rigid centre section of the bow, but then reverses to be convex for a small part near the limb tip. The bowstring lies in a small groove aligned down the centre of this part of the limbs and the contact here decreases as the bow is drawn back. The centre section of these bows is usually made by computer driven machining of a solid billet of aircraft quality aluminium alloy, with built in adjustment so that the whole bow can be fine tuned for best alignment and a set up that best suits the individual archer. Archers have an adjustable sight attached to the bow centre section or riser as it is sometimes called, this is used to set the mark for each of the ranges the archer is required to shoot, but also to make allowances for the effects of weather, mainly windage. Other conditions such as temperature, humidity and rain, will have an effect on the flight of arrows to the target as well.

A number of stabilizer weights are attached to various points on the riser, usually attached to the ends of carbon rods, thereby increasing the resistance to movement of the bow during release of the arrow. A recent addition to bows are rubber vibration damping modules stuck onto critical points on the bows, which also help to minimize unwanted movements during the release of a shot.

Arrows are made from carbon fibre, usually manufactured by wrapping round an alloy inner tube. This results in a very lightweight and so even faster arrow flight. The fletchings for these arrows can be flexible plastic or often curved mylar material (similar to that used for camera film). The curve and angle of application of these fletchings gives a spinning action to stabilize the arrow's flight, but is adjusted so as not to produce excessive drag to the arrow's flight.

The most recent development in archery is that of the compound bow. This style employs the use of cams or pulleys at the ends of the bow limbs with extra strings or cables running between them. The result of this is that the bow has its maximum draw force around half way along the arrow draw length, and then requires less draw force to hold once the full draw length is obtained. Again this results in a much faster and more efficient action. It also gives the archer more control because of the lower draw weight being held while aiming and releasing. This compound bow also includes other aids such as a mechanical release or trigger device that allows the archer to let go of the string more cleanly than with the conventional finger grip. Another difference is the sight, which is includes a magnifying lens and a bubble to permit true leveling of the bow during aiming.

Of course with any bow design the accuracy achieved depends on the archer. High levels of skill can only be developed by wanting to practice the sport for so long that the ability to hit the middle of the target under all kind of circumstances and competition situations becomes a sub-conscious skill. The ability to do that amount of shooting without becoming bored is what differentiates champion archers from the vast majority. At the top competitive levels even small increases in accuracy can make significant differences in results and so the fine-tuning and regular checking of equipment can also be an important part of the whole approach.