On the shooting line of most clubs people eat the way they always have: a sandwich between ends, a snack bar when the competition runs long, and a widely held view that nutritionists are for marathon runners and weightlifters, not for people who draw a bow. I have already written about competition day in the article on hydration and nutrition on competition day. The question here is a different one, and it concerns ordinary weeks: what competitive archers eat, what they weigh, who advises them and what they are missing.
The studies that answer it are few and mostly small, but together they form a fairly consistent picture. Shooting uses little energy, and the basal metabolic rate of the archers who have been measured is what would be predicted for their age, so the balance between what goes in and what goes out is settled mostly away from the bow. Eight in ten of the elite archers who answered the only international questionnaire consider their diet healthy, although fewer than half have access to a sports nutritionist, and four in ten report less than 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram a day. On body weight the samples disagree, and body mass index alone cannot say what the numbers mean.
How much energy shooting uses
Almost all the direct measurements of the cost of shooting come from one Japanese laboratory in the early 1980s. In the first study six university archers shot ends of three arrows at 30 m and ran to collect them: an end cost 11 kilocalories on average over just over three minutes, about 3.6 a minute. In the second, ten archers shot standing still with three draw weights each, and one arrow cost between 0.47 and 0.73 kilocalories for the men and between 0.27 and 0.40 for the women, more with a heavier bow. The authors described the intensity of shooting as relatively low, and much of the cost of an end came from fetching the arrows.
In the first study the cost also rose with body weight, with a correlation of 0.73, and with body surface area. That is the weakest part of the claim the registry lists as reported, that the energy cost of shooting is low, and what there is grows with the archer's body size: the correlation comes from six people, and in the second study the difference between men and women remained even when the cost was expressed per kilogram, a sign that draw weight and sex matter too.
The same research group also measured basal metabolic rate, in the morning and fasted. The six archers of 1981 used 38.3 kilocalories per square metre of body surface per hour, against the 37.5 predicted by the tables for their age; in the ten of 1984 the figures were 38.5 against 38.5 in the men and 33.9 against 34.3 in the women. That is why it is reported that an archer's basal metabolic rate does not differ from the value predicted for their age, with two clear limits: the reference is a population table rather than a group of peers measured the same way, and the measurement has not been repeated with present-day equipment.
Put together, these figures say that in sixteen archers shooting had left no mark on resting energy use, and that an end of arrows costs little. An archer's energy needs therefore depend on their body, on how much they walk and on whatever other training they do far more than on the bow, which is why what they eat weighs on the balance more than the shot itself would suggest.
How what archers eat is measured
Before the dietary figures it helps to know how they were collected, because the methods are very different. The most precise was used on the Turkish national team at two tournaments in 2023: food diaries with photographs of each plate to estimate portions, at the second tournament also food and drink weighed before and after eating, and meals prepared by the team nutritionist. Under those conditions energy and carbohydrate intake followed the day's load, and this is reported. One step down is the three-day diary, which a Brazilian thesis used for breakfast and a snack. At the other end is the questionnaire, published in 2026: fifty-one elite archers from twenty-two countries, twenty-eight women and twenty-three men competing at World Cups and at world and European championships, answered thirty-six questions online, picking from memory the band into which their protein, carbohydrate and calories fell on an average day of the preparation period.
The first method shows precisely what a supported team eats at a tournament, a situation few archers know. The second and third come closer to everyday life but lose precision: three days of diary are few to describe a habit, and the authors of the questionnaire point out themselves that answers from memory carry recall errors and a tendency to report what is expected.
Who looks after archers' nutrition
The international questionnaire first asked who takes care of these archers' nutrition. 47% said they had access to a sports nutritionist, 37% that they received advice from a qualified specialist and 27% that their diet was followed by an expert; in 73% of cases the federation took no part in their nutrition, and 45% had received a personalised plan at least once. Among younger archers there is only a hint: in a 2024 study at the European youth championships, among two hundred archers aged 13-20 from thirty-four countries, one in three followed a prescribed diet, but the study does not say who prescribed it, and the registry keeps it as context.
The most striking figure, though, is how they see it. In the same sample 80% considered their diet healthy or appropriate and 86% felt they had enough energy all day, far more than had anyone checking it.
That is why it is reported that most elite archers have no professional nutritional support. The status goes no higher because there is a single study and everything is self-reported by those who chose to answer, and people who reply to a questionnaire about nutrition may not resemble those who ignore it.
The authors then compared archers who are supported with those who are not, and the differences are large. Those with access to a sports nutritionist have a smaller waist, 74.6 against 83.8 centimetres, and train 5.3 hours a day against 3.4; those whose federation looks after their nutrition weigh 65 kilograms against 76, have a body mass index of 22.0 against 25.5 and train 6.6 hours a day against 3.4. It is reported, as an association, that elite archers supported by a nutrition professional are slimmer and train more, but these data cannot show which leads to which. Someone training six hours a day is probably in a federation programme that also provides the nutritionist, and across the whole sample those who train on more days a week are also lighter, without separating who is supported and who is not. Weight, height and waist were also reported by the archers themselves, and they measured their own waist following written instructions.
Protein
The protein measurements come from two opposite directions. In the Turkish national team, eight archers followed over four days of a World Cup with their meals weighed and the nutritionist's menu took in between 2.1 and 2.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight a day on average, with no difference between men and women. The same year, at a European Grand Prix, six male archers from the same team were between 2.2 and 3.6 grams, above the 1.2-2.0 range the authors cited as recommended for athletes. This is what a supported team eats at a tournament, on a menu chosen by someone else.
The international questionnaire describes the preparation period instead, and the picture changes. Of the fifty-one archers, 9.8% reported less than 0.8 grams per kilogram a day, 31.4% between 0.8 and 1.2, 35.3% between 1.2 and 1.6, 19.6% between 1.6 and 2.0 and 3.9% more than 2. Nine in ten are therefore above the lowest band and four in ten below 1.2, which is how the registry words the reported claim that nine elite archers in ten report at least 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram a day, but four in ten stay below 1.2.
The status stops at reported for three reasons. There is a single study, the answers are given from memory and in broad bands by those who chose to reply, and the study does not say what threshold it considers sufficient for an archer, so the registry gives the bands without deciding where enough begins. The Turkish team does not settle the matter either, because it describes a menu chosen by a nutritionist during a tournament rather than everyday habit. Finally, neither study links protein to recovery, injuries or scores: how much an archer needs, compared with athletes in other sports, is a question archery research has not yet put to the test.
Body weight
Body weight is where the most debated question arises. In the international questionnaire the average body mass index was 24.6, ranging from 18.4 to 32.7, and 45.1% of the archers were in the overweight band or above. The figure is striking, but it is calculated from self-reported weight and height, and set beside the measured samples it shows that the answer changes a great deal depending on who is measured.
In samples from East and South-East Asia the average index is almost always between 24 and 26, at the top of the normal range or just above it: 24.2 and 25.0 in the two groups of twenty Korean high-school archers, 26.2 in twelve young Malaysian archers at national level, 24.1 and 24.4 in thirty-one elite Korean archers. In twenty Malaysian teenagers compared with twenty sedentary peers of similar height, the archers were at 23.6 and the sedentary group at 19.1. On the other side, thirty-three Indian archers at national and international level are at 22.6 for the men and 22.4 for the women, and thirty professional compound archers in Cyprus at 23.0, an entirely ordinary build.
With samples pointing in opposite directions, the claim that many competitive archers weigh more than is normal for their height is contested. There is also a limit that applies to all of them: body mass index does not tell muscle from fat, and where body composition was measured the picture changes from one group to another. The thirty-one elite Korean archers had about 16% body fat with some thirty kilograms of skeletal muscle, a high index carried largely by muscle; the twenty Malaysian teenagers reached 26.7% fat against 20.5% in their sedentary peers; the Indian archers, measured with skinfolds, were at an unusually low 5.3%. No study, moreover, has related archers' body mass index to injuries or illness, so these data say where the weight sits, not that it is a health problem.
That leaves the question I hear most often on the field, whether a few extra kilos cost points. Here too the registry is cautious, and the claim that more body fat goes with lower scores is contested: in the only large study, of 188 American recurve archers of mixed ability, a rounder build estimated from somatotype went with lower scores (r = -0.31), while body fat measured with skinfolds on the same archers was unrelated (r = -0.06).
Learning to eat
If many archers lack support, the obvious question is what happens when it arrives. The only published attempt is a Brazilian master's thesis on eight national team archers, four men and four women, none of whom was followed by a nutritionist. The programme consisted of five weekly one-hour sessions on nutrients, meal timing, recipes, hydration and supplements, plus an individual consultation with a nutritionist. Before and after, the archers kept a three-day diary of breakfast and a snack and shot half a competition at 70 and 90 m.
After the programme the men had increased almost every macronutrient at breakfast and at the snack, while the women had changed only the protein at breakfast; with four people of each sex, though, the difference between men and women can be described but not interpreted. In the half competition, blood glucose measured with a portable meter was higher at all three time points, at rest, after the 70 m and after the 90 m, while salivary cortisol did not change. The registry lists as reported that a few nutrition education sessions change how an archer eats and raise blood glucose in competition, and no more than that: there is no control group, the values appear only in the thesis figures and score was not one of the outcomes.
Where the research stops
Taken together, these studies describe archers without putting anything to the test. They are cross-sectional studies or before-and-after comparisons, on samples ranging from six to two hundred people, and the dietary data are almost always reported by the archers themselves. Nobody has changed the diet of one group of archers and compared it with a group whose diet stayed the same, and nobody has linked protein or access to a nutritionist to scores, while on body fat the few data disagree. The most practical questions, whether an archer would shoot better by eating differently or carrying a few kilos less, are therefore questions archery research has not put to the test.
What I take from it for the field
These studies do not add up to a diet for archers. I take three things from them, which I use for orientation rather than as rules.
The first concerns body weight. Since shooting costs little and the basal metabolic rate of the archers measured is what their age predicts, the calorie balance is set mainly by the rest of the day and by what is eaten. Hours on the field, on their own, shift the balance very little, and anyone thinking of changing their weight would do well to ask first whether their body mass index reflects fat or muscle: only a measurement of body composition, carried out and interpreted with a professional, can say.
The second concerns the gap between how archers see their diet and who checks it. Eight in ten of the fifty-one in the questionnaire rated it healthy, while fewer than half had access to a sports nutritionist, and nobody verified whether those diets met their needs. For anyone training many hours a week or preparing for an important season, a check with a sports nutritionist is the most direct way to find out whether that impression holds up. The same goes for protein: the right amount for a person is set by whoever is advising them, not by an average borrowed from another sport or from what a teammate eats.
The third concerns how people learn. In the Brazilian thesis five lessons and one consultation changed what the men ate at breakfast and at the snack, and blood glucose in half a competition. Whether that brings points has not been measured, but in the men of that group habits shifted after only a few sessions, and for a club or a squad a session with a sports nutritionist is a step within reach. For competition day, where there are a few more measurements, see the article on hydration and nutrition on competition day.