Sooner or later the question occurs to every archer, usually while looking at the kit of someone who shoots better: if I went up in poundage, would I score more? The studies that have put draw weight and score side by side answer with caution. Across different archers, those who draw more weight tend to score a little higher, but the effect is small and comes bundled with skill level, because in some samples higher-level archers also shoot slightly heavier bows; and nobody has had the same archers shoot different draw weights to see what happens to their score. That is why, in the registry, the claim that a heavier draw weight leads to higher scores is only reported.
The other question that brings people here is how much an Olympic archer draws, and the figures heard on the range run from thirty to fifty pounds. The studies account for both ends: the small national-level groups measured in 1990 and 2010 sat between 30 and 37 lb, while the larger and more recent samples of top-level recurve archers average between about 43 and 54. The sections below cover the studies on pounds and score, the figures for top-level groups study by study, then what the pounds buy in speed and what they cost in control.
A note for anyone arriving here directly: draw weight is the force needed to bring the bow to full draw, it is measured in pounds, and the number printed on the limbs applies at a reference draw length, nowadays usually 28 inches. This article gathers what the studies have measured; how to choose your own draw weight, by level, age and division, and how to go up or down in poundage is covered in the guide what draw weight to choose.
Draw weight and score: what the studies find
Few studies link the two, and all of them compare different archers at a single point in time. The highest-level sample is thirty-nine elite recurve archers tested before a World Cup event: self-reported draw weight entered, together with clicker reaction time and body sway after the release, the model that predicted the score of each arrow, but between an archer one standard deviation below the group mean and one a standard deviation above, the difference was worth about half a point per arrow. The authors themselves consider it simplistic to read this as advice to raise draw weight.
In thirty-three young Indian archers of national and international level the correlation between draw weight and score rises to 0.608, but the sample pools recurve at 70 metres with compound at 50, two divisions that differ both in pounds and in points, and part of the correlation may come from that. In twenty-seven regional compound archers, on the other hand, greater draw force goes with higher scores only by way of arrow speed, since the direct effect is nil; within the same group the men drew 318 newtons against the women's 206, and their scores were almost identical, 327 against 320.
On the other side sit two results. In thirty Japanese archers split into three levels by their score at 70 metres, draw weight did not separate the groups, while age and years of practice did. In forty-five provincial-level recurve archers in Iran, with bows between 34 and 48 lb, draw weight did not correlate with score (r = 0.11), but this is a secondary figure published in a journal with questionable editorial standards, and the registry does not count it. Read together, these studies say that draw weight and skill level travel together, not that the pounds bring the points.
One study looks instead at draw weight relative to the archer's strength: in fifteen elite and sub-elite recurve archers, when the bow exceeded 40% of maximal strength the score tended to fall, but the result stops just short of statistical significance (p = 0.054) and comes from a conference abstract, so the idea that above 40% of maximal strength a heavier draw weight goes with lower scores is not studied in the registry. The guide to choosing draw weight covers how much of their own strength archers put into the bow, and why stronger archers do not draw more weight for that reason.
How many pounds top archers draw
For recurve, the figure heard most often is thirty to forty pounds, often used to hold back archers who want to move up too quickly. The measurements inside that band, though, come from small groups: three Australian national-level recurve archers in 1990, at 30, 35 and 36 lb; four Turkish national team archers in 2010, at 16.9 kg, about 37 lb; and the fourteen archers of the Polish national team in 2023, with bows set between 36 and 40. The larger samples sit higher. At the 2012 European outdoor championships recurve archers reported an average of 42.9 lb; at the 2025 World Cup stage in Shanghai the recurve average was 46.8, with values from 37.2 to 58.3; and the thirty-nine elite archers of the scoring study reported 24.55 kg, about 54 lb, a high figure for a group that included sixteen women, printed in a table whose units leave some doubt. That is why the claim that top archers shoot moderate draw weights, between thirty and forty pounds is contested in the registry.
It is tempting to read the figure as the top of the sport moving up by ten pounds over the years, but the data do not allow it. The older groups have three or four people and the recent ones dozens; they mix men and women in different proportions, which on its own shifts the mean by several pounds; and the draw weight is often the one the archers reported rather than one that was measured. As early as 1990, after all, eight experienced FITA competitors were shooting bows of roughly 40 to 48 lb. The forty to fifty pound band you hear about today matches the average of recent international samples, but within a single one of those groups the standard deviation reaches six pounds, and no average tells you what an individual archer draws. The history of these measurements, study by study, is at the end of the article.
Comparisons between levels do not point one way either. Among 62 recurve archers, those at the European championships reported about four and a half pounds more than those at a German national indoor championship, 42.9 against 38.5, a significant difference; in 27 recurve archers grouped by FITA score the elite drew 44.0 lb against 34.8 for beginners and 35.5 for intermediates, but the difference was not tested; in 28 Chinese archers the eight national team members drew 46.3 lb against 42.1 and 42.3 for the provincial groups, in a study from a questionable venue. The Japanese sample, by contrast, found no difference across its three levels. And where a difference does appear, level comes with other things attached: the European group trained almost twice as many times a week and shot outdoors, while the elite archers in the other two samples had more years of practice. The claim that higher-level archers shoot a few pounds more than the others is therefore contested.
All these figures also need reading with a margin: the draw weight printed on the limbs applies at the reference draw length, and in the studies it is often the weight the archers reported rather than one weighed at their own draw length. The guide to choosing draw weight explains how far the two numbers can drift apart and how to weigh your own bow.
Compound, kyudo and youth categories
On a compound the stated number is the peak of the draw force curve, which the cams largely shed at full draw, so compound pounds do not sit on the same scale as recurve pounds and samples that pool the two divisions say little about either. What this means for anyone choosing, in compound as in traditional archery, is covered in the guide to choosing draw weight.
Kyudo is a case of its own, since it measures in kilograms at a draw length of 90 centimetres: 65 university students with an average grade of 1.2 dan shot bows from 8 to 20 kg, 12.6 on average, about 28 lb.
For young archers, finally, there is no figure that holds up. The only study that reports draw weight by sex, a questionnaire given to 200 archers at the European youth championships, gives 15.44 lb for the girls and 16.99 for the boys, beginner-bow values that in the same table coincide with other rows, the boys' mean age and the girls' weekly training hours. The claim that among elite youth archers, girls and boys shoot similar draw weights therefore remains not studied.
Pounds and speed: the square root
What the pounds buy is speed, though not in proportion. For the same draw length and bow efficiency the stored energy rises roughly in line with draw weight, whereas arrow speed, for the same arrow mass, grows as the square root of that energy. Going from 30 to 36 pounds is a 20% increase in the effort you hold on every arrow, for the whole competition, and speed rises by about 10%, with flight time shortening by roughly the same fraction.
The measurements confirm the direction, with one difference that matters. On a shooting machine a laminated recurve drawn to 40 and then to 50 lb sent the same 23 g arrow from 45.5 to about 54.3 metres per second, measured at 20 metres: with 25% more weight, speed rose by about 19%, more than the square root predicts. The likeliest explanation is that the bow was the same, drawn by the machine to the weight required, so reaching more weight also meant drawing more string, and draw weight and draw length rose together. Among archers there is so far a single study: in the 61 archers at the Shanghai World Cup stage draw weight correlated with arrow speed at 0.854, but recurve and compound are analysed together and bow type alone correlated with speed at 0.787, so the claim that among archers, those who shoot heavier draw weights send the arrow off faster is reported. As far back as 1990, moreover, speed did not separate levels: in three Olympic and six national archers it was slightly higher in the former, with no significant difference, and what set them apart was how consistent it stayed from one arrow to the next.
Where speed matters
Extra speed counts where trajectory enters the score on every arrow, which happens in three situations.
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Unknown distances
In field and 3D the distance is not marked, and judging error grows with distance: in twenty-eight archers from three styles the error band considered average went from 2.8-5.1 yards on a target at 17 yards to 19.3-31.5 yards on one at 55, about 50 metres, and the claim that when the distance is unknown, judging error grows with distance is reported. A flat trajectory changes height less from one metre to the next and turns less of that error into high or low arrows.
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Wind and long distances
The arrow slows down throughout its flight, and over a 70-metre range it loses around 15% of its launch speed: the claim that the arrow loses an appreciable part of its launch speed in flight is corroborated. A faster arrow spends less time in the air and gives the wind less time to act, and the advantage grows with distance.
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Arrow spine
More weight calls for a stiffer arrow, and the window is narrow: in a recurve model calibrated on bench measurements, moving to the next spine requires about 11 newtons of draw weight, two and a half pounds. The claim that arrow spine has to be matched to draw weight and arrow length is reported, and every change in poundage brings a tuning check with it, using the manufacturer's chart and a bare shaft.
At known distances drop is taken care of once and for all when the sight is set, and the advantage of speed shrinks to the wind. Archers who shoot 3D and field have real reasons to care about speed; those who shoot indoors at 18 metres have few.
The cost: control
The bill on the other side is paid by the archer. The extra pounds are held on every shot, while aiming, through expansion and in the final hold, for dozens of arrows and for hours, and I recognise a draw weight beyond an archer's current capacity in the shot first and then on the target: bow arm tremor that grows, a draw length that shortens without the archer noticing, a hurried anchor because holding is tiring. These are observations from the range, not measurements, and they all land where error is most expensive, because control errors are angular and distance multiplies them: a tenth of a degree is worth about 12 centimetres at 70 metres, the size of the 10 ring on a 122 cm face, which is 12.2 centimetres across.
An engineering paper on bow tremor does the same sum: a sight that moves 1.74 millimetres at a distance of one metre sends the arrow 122 millimetres off at 70 metres. In the registry the claim that while aiming, a movement of a fraction of a millimetre becomes centimetres of error on the target is transferred, because it rests on a geometric calculation rather than a measurement on archers; the calculation is still enough to show where each one acts. The gain in speed works on drop and against the wind, while lost control moves the arrow in any direction; how the two compare in points is something no study has measured.
Over the longer term, a load the body is not ready to absorb can also contribute to overuse injuries. What the registry says about draw weight in young archers and the shoulder is in the guide to choosing, in the section on draw weight for young archers.
From the studies to your own choice
For anyone who has to decide, these studies leave two pointers: extra pounds buy speed that matters mainly at unknown distances, in wind and at long range, and no measurement has shown that moving up in weight brings points to the same archer. How to choose your own draw weight, when to go up and when to come down, and why the feeling that the bow has become light is a weak yardstick, is set out in the guide what draw weight to choose.