An archer's arousal rises with what is at stake, and keeps rising as the competition goes on

The summary today

Three independent samples, measured twenty years apart from one another, say the same thing. The first is one Olympic archer recorded in competition: he breathes between eighteen and thirty times a minute, holds a heart rate between seventy-five and a hundred, and across two competitions in the same year his physiological strain is higher at the national championships than at the provincial event. The second is the tidiest set of figures: in five university kyudo archers the heart rate at the moment of the shot rises in steps, from practice alone to practice with the opposing team present, then to formal practice with the score recorded, and finally to competition, and the rise is significant in all five. The third adds the part that matters most: in a real indoor competition the parasympathetic markers of ten experienced archers fall end after end across the twenty ends, while in seven novices they stay flat. Taken together they say that arousal is not a switch the competition flicks on, it is a climb that carries on inside the competition, and no study points the other way. What is missing is the next step: what gets measured here is arousal, not the score.

Also phrased as: "heart rate goes up in competition"; "the more a competition matters, the higher the arousal"; "tension builds up as the competition goes on"; "heart rate in competition and in training"; "an archer's arousal in the last ends"

Evidence

• 1992
  For Archers Published later

  One Olympic archer followed with a portable apparatus for continuous recording in competition: comparing two events, respiratory sinus arrhythmia was lower at the United States championships than at the provincial competition, where the values stayed largely within the reference range. An indirect index of higher strain at the event that mattered more, in a single archer.

  Development of an Apparatus for Monitoring Degree of Mental Tension · Mieko Ohsuga, Futomi Shimono, Chie Akashi

• 1992
  Context Archers Published later

  The same archer, from the competition recordings: a breathing rate between 0.3 and 0.5 Hz, that is between eighteen and thirty breaths a minute, higher than at rest. It gives the scale of what is meant by arousal here.

  Development of an Apparatus for Monitoring Degree of Mental Tension · Mieko Ohsuga, Futomi Shimono, Chie Akashi

• 1992
  Context Archers Published later

  From the same archer again, the heart rate range derived in competition: beat-to-beat intervals from 600 to 800 milliseconds, that is between seventy-five and a hundred beats a minute, with a respiratory sinus arrhythmia amplitude between ten and twenty milliseconds. These are the figures the authors used as a reference, not a norm.

  Development of an Apparatus for Monitoring Degree of Mental Tension · Mieko Ohsuga, Futomi Shimono, Chie Akashi

• 1994
  For Kyudo archers Published later

  Five university kyudo archers, repeated measures within each archer across four conditions: free practice alone, free practice with the opposing team present, formal practice with the score recorded, and competition. The mean peak heart rate per shot rises in that order in all five, for example from 93.1 to 113.8, 110.1 and 137.5 beats per minute in the first archer, and the analysis of variance is significant in each of them (p < 0.001). It is the tidiest measurement on this page, but it is in kyudo.

  Changes of Heart Rate, Somatic Anxiety, and Performance of Japanese Archers during Practices and Matches · Masakazu Miyamoto

• 1994
  Context Kyudo archers Published later

  In the same study, the detail that bears on the course of the competition: in most of the five archers the heart rate at the shot reaches around a hundred and fifty beats a minute in the very first ends, with competition means between 137.5 and 161.7. It says the starting level in competition is high, not that it keeps rising.

  Changes of Heart Rate, Somatic Anxiety, and Performance of Japanese Archers during Practices and Matches · Masakazu Miyamoto

• 2011
  For Archers Published later

  Ten experienced archers and seven adolescent novices, twenty ends of three arrows at eighteen metres in a real indoor competition: across the ends the parasympathetic markers of the experienced archers fall, while those of the novices stay flat (group by end interaction on RMSSD p = 0.02 and on pNN50 p = 0.01, partial eta squared 0.04 in both cases). The effect is small, and it says the climb belongs to those who know how to compete.

  Autonomic nervous system modulation during an archery competition in novice and experienced adolescent archers · Andres E. Carrillo, Vasilios X. Christodoulou, Yiannis Koutedakis, Andreas D. Flouris

Status history

1. 1992 Reported The first piece of evidence is a single case, but the recording was made in competition, not in a laboratory. One Olympic archer followed with a portable apparatus breathes between eighteen and thirty times a minute, with a heart rate between seventy-five and a hundred, and the comparison of two 1988 events shows higher physiological strain at the United States championships than at the provincial one. A single archer takes this to reported, no further.
2. 1994 Reported Two years later the step-by-step measurement arrives, and it is the cleanest on this page: in five university kyudo archers the heart rate at the shot rises from free practice alone to practice with the opposing team present, then to formal practice with the score recorded, and finally to competition, with a significant rise in all five. The comparison is within the same archer, so the evidence is strong, but it is in kyudo: on its own it takes this no further than reported.
3. 2011 Corroborated The third independent sample is on recurve and in a real indoor competition: in the ten experienced archers the parasympathetic markers fall end after end across the twenty ends, while in the seven novices they stay flat. It also adds the new part, that the climb carries on inside the competition and is not spent on the first shot. Three independent samples pointing the same way, no contrary study and comparisons made within the same archer: the status rises to corroborated.

Related

Related articles

• Do archers shoot worse in competition than in training? The body and the target, measuredIn competition the heart beats faster, yet measured accuracy does not drop: what studies comparing competition and training show, and where they stop.

Research lines

• 19 studiesArousal, relaxation and individual zones
• 48 studiesThe heartbeat and the shot: heart rate and HRV since 1981

Other claims in this domain

• CorroboratedAbout 150 points on a FITA round separate a club archer from a national-team archer13 studies · 492 archers measuredStatus since 2003
• CorroboratedArchers are more aroused in competition than in training5 studies · 50 archers measuredStatus since 2025
• CorroboratedAt 70 metres a top archer averages about nine points per arrow7 studies · 72 archers measuredStatus since 2012
• CorroboratedEven in competition at the highest level, most arrows are not tens4 studies · 3,212 archers measuredStatus since 2024
• CorroboratedIn studies of competitive archers the mean score per arrow sits around seven points, not nine11 studies · 268 archers measuredStatus since 2026

See all claims on competition and scoring