How Matt Stutzman gets his heartrate pumping to replicate the adrenaline of competing at Paris 2024
‘Armless Archer’ Matt Stutzman had a brilliant idea for how he could re-create the adrenaline he would have while competing in front of sold out stands at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.
Shoot an arrow at a target without touching his most prized possession – a Paralympic medal – that was hanging on it.
To “add value to the shot”, the USA Para archer set up an elaborate maze beforehand. He drove out his expensive race car, took its doors off and parked it in front of the target. He then hung his Paralympic silver medal from London 2012 on the target, went inside his house, flung open the front and back doors, went to the back side and shot the bow with his feet.
“I wanted to create adrenaline,” Stutzman explained. “I knew if I missed, I'm either sticking a hole in the house, I'm going to stick a hole in my race car that I care about, and more importantly, if I mess up, I'm going to stick an arrow in an irreplaceable Paralympic medal. I knew I had to get it correct and make sure it counted. And my heart was pumping like, ‘oh boy’. It was like, chut chut chut. And then, I shot.”
The arrow whizzed through the house, through the car, to the target. The medal was unharmed.
Relieved, Stutzman cleaned up the scene and put his medal safely back in its storage. When his fiancee came home, he could not resist showing her the video he got of the epic shot.
“I said, ‘sit down, check out this video'. And she's like, ‘oh my goodness, you didn't even remove the fire extinguishers out of the car. What if you would have hit them and they would have exploded?'” Stutzman said. “And I was like, ‘I need to force myself into a scenario that creates adrenaline and pressure because shooting in the backyard doesn't do it for me'.”
Adrenaline was a key ingredient in Stutzman’s preparations as he readied to compete in front of packed stands at the Esplanade des Invalides in Paris. Always looking for new ways to get his heartrate up, the Para archer practised shooting his bow minutes after jumping out of planes and racing cars over 300 km/h.
His unusual strategy paid off. Stutzman won gold in the Para archery individual compound open on Sunday (1 September), setting a new Paralympic record of 149.
Olympics.com spoke to the Paralympic medallist about his unconventional training methods, signature 'armless archer' technique, and the power of visualisation before his record-breaking performance.
Matt Stutzman added adrenaline to a regular training session by shooting the arrow through his house and race car at a target on which his Paralympic medal was hanging.
Matt Stutzman’s endless hunt for adrenaline
Matt Stutzman’s training process goes something like this: Get into a plane, jump out of a plane with a parachute, land as close as possible to the target, shoot arrows until the adrenaline wears off, then do it all again.
His personal record for this exhilarating exercise is nine jumps, or the equivalent of 100 arrows, in a single day.
The experience is meant to replicate what it will be like to shoot a bow in front of thousands of spectators. While Stutzman is no stranger to the spotlight – he has competed and won medals at four world championships and featured in Netflix’s Rising Phoenix documentary – he expects that a competition in front of full stands at Paris 2024 will rattle his nerves like never before.
“The problem is that people can shoot good until they get to the Games. And now they're shooting in front of 8,000, 10,000 or 11,000 people, and they haven't done it in four years. So now, all of a sudden, they have all this adrenaline and they don't know what to do with it,” Stutzman explained.
“Everything changes. The way you hold the bow changes, your sight picture gets blurry, your body's heightened. And how do I train with adrenaline? I tried different things and I can never force adrenaline into my body. But if you jump out of a plane – I don't care how many times you do it – your body is forced to have adrenaline because it's not natural to be free falling towards the ground.”
Once Stutzman dives out of an airborne plane, he tries to land close to the target to start shooting the bow right after landing. Over the next five to 10 minutes while the adrenaline of the skydiving plunge continues to course through his veins, he studies ways to control the buzz and have his arrows hit the centre of the target.
Driving and racing cars is one of the ways that Matt Stutzman replicates the adrenaline he feels during a Paralympic Games competition.
Another way that Stutzman gets an adrenaline punch is by racing cars.
The race car he owns can accelerate from 0 to 60 m/h in a second and reach speeds of 200 m/h in 6.5 seconds. With that kind of acceleration, the body produces adrenaline in the same way as when free falling from a plane.
After hurtling down the racetrack, Stutzman quickly parks the car and… picks up his bow. Race, shoot, repeat.
He admits it is not a conventional way to train in archery.
“I've never heard of anybody do that before,” Stutzman said with a laugh. “I'm kind of an adrenaline junkie, so I feel like I'm the only one that works on that and tries to shoot with adrenaline.”
There are some ideas, however, that are even too wild for him.
Stutzman thought of being a bull rider when he was younger. This career plan did not last long as he fell off the animal and got a concussion, but years later, his youngest son Alex inadvertently reminded him of other possible benefits of bull riding.
“He's like, ‘dad, have you ever thought about trying to ride a bull again?’ and I was like, ‘that would be awesome because that's going to force me to have adrenaline, and then it's going to be bucking and all that stuff," Stutzman said. "And then when I fall off, I'll just quickly go shoot my bow until the adrenaline wears off."
His fiancee Jessica was less enthusiastic about this prospect and reminded him of the possible injuries he could get. With two months to go until Paris 2024, Stutzman decided not to take the risk. For now.
“I did not do that,” Stutzman mused. “But those types of thoughts have crossed my mind.”
Visualising the ‘Armless Archer’ technique
Coming up with new ways to do things is something that comes naturally to Stutzman, who has had to invent his own technique for shooting arrows.
Born without arms, Stutzman bought his first bow in 2010 after watching an archer on TV. When he sat down to research how to shoot it without arms, the online search engine came up blank, so Stutzman created the how-to manual in his mind instead.
“Visualisation,” he said of the key to his success. “I would watch people with arms shoot and I would visualise I was somebody with arms. If they held the bow with their right arm, I would hold the bow with my right foot, but in my head the visualisation process is that wasn't my foot holding the bow, that was an arm holding the bow. So, in my way of visualisation and pretending basically I was an able-bodied archer, I was able to learn how to shoot.”
With the method Stutzman invented, he was able to hit a 24mm coin at 20 yards consistently within the first three weeks.
Two years after he first picked up the bow, he took a silver medal in the men’s individual compound open at the London 2012 Paralympic Games. He also won gold medals at the 2015 and 2022 world championships, and bronze medals at the 2019 and 2023 world championships.
Stutzman has not only used visualisation to learn how to shoot arrows, but also to master daily tasks like eating and writing.
“Everything in my life is with visualisation. If I see you writing with your hand, I will visualise my foot as my hand and I will try to hold the pen in the same manner like you would,” he explained. “Even though it looks different for the people watching me, how I do stuff, in my head it looks very much exactly the same as if somebody with hands were doing it.”
To this day, visualisation plays a major role in Stutzman’s training process.
How much so? Tap into his mind during a typical session to find out: Stutzman is perched on his stool at the Esplanade des Invalides, his feet flexing the bow, eyes fixed on the target while the crowds erupt in cheers all around him. The USA flag flies up as the Para archer receives his much-awaited second Paralympic medal.
But this is not Paris. This is Stutzman’s gloomy, bunker-like home basement in Iowa.
Printed on a big piece of paper, a picture of the Invalides hangs on the wall behind him, along with a USA flag to “visualise what it’s like to be on the podium”. The crowd noises and cheers are coming from an audio recording on his phone. Every small detail counts.
“I visualise everything, the buildings in the background, the actual peak of the Invalides. The peak of the roof is gold, so I know that's going to be to my back,” Stutzman said. “I visualise every aspect of it, the way the wind swirls, the way where I'm sitting is blue. The background behind the target, the way that's blue, where the crowds would be sitting.”
Stutzman has been to the Invalides three times already, including during the 2024 Olympic Games when he watched USA's Brady Ellison take silver in the men’s individual event and help the mixed team to a bronze.
Now it is the Armless Archer's turn to compete at the iconic Parisian venue, and there will be extra motivation for Stutzman to do his best. In the crowd that he is visualising so vividly will be his fiancee and three sons.
Carter, Cameron and Alex are travelling outside the country, and on a plane, for the first time and Stutzman is determined to make the trip worth it.
“We're calling this the Memories Games,” the athlete said. “I'm going to be showing off for them because I want them to know that dad's awesome.
“I've been practising in my head for that moment for the last eight months, so I know when I get there... I just start smiling because it feels very much like home already.”