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Between male and female archers the strength gap is large, while on flexibility and dexterity the advantage reverses

6 studies · 358 archers measured

ForContextAgainst2022202420262024, context, n = 2002023, context, n = 602025, for, n = 452025, context, n = 452026, context, n = 212025, for, n = 172025, context, n = 15
Each circle is a study: its position gives the year, its row whether it is for, against or context, its size how many participants it measured. Light circles are studies on other populations or without archers.

The whole picture comes from a single sample, forty-five traditional Turkish archers aged 20 to 35. There the strength gap is not uniform: huge in the back, 150 against 73 kilos, smaller in grip, 39 against 31, while the women are quicker on the nine-hole peg test with both hands and more flexible on the sit and reach, 29.9 against 24.9 centimetres, and one-leg balance is the same. In seventeen adolescent beginners the boys have about a third more muscle mass in the arms, which points the same way as far as strength goes. Other data help to read the comparison: among elite young archers from 34 countries girls and boys train with the same load, so at least at that level physical differences are unlikely to come from hours of shooting, while in the deep trunk muscles the only difference is the internal oblique on the dominant side. For strength there is more than one piece of data; the reversal on flexibility and dexterity rests on a single study, and none says how much of these differences reaches the score at equal draw weight.

Also phrased as: "male and female differences in archery"; "women archers and strength"; "strength in male and female archers"; "flexibility in female archers"

In practice

The saying is that female archers make up with technique and feel for what they lack in strength, which is why physical programmes for girls stress the back and those for boys stress mobility.

Evidence

Status history

  1. 2023 Not studied The first comparison between boys and girls who shoot concerns balance, not strength or flexibility: in sixty archers aged 12 to 13 the girls more often sit in the top categories of the one-leg test. It is a count with no test, in a journal with questionable editorial standards, and it touches neither part of the claim.
  2. 2024 Not studied A piece of data arrives that helps to read the later comparisons: among two hundred elite young archers from 34 countries, girls and boys train with the same load, fifteen hours a week and about 160 arrows per session. In that sample, then, any physical difference between the sexes could not be put down to how much they shoot, although the data say nothing about the adult archers measured later. On strength, flexibility and dexterity, though, there is still no measurement at all.
  3. 2025 Reported In forty-five traditional archers back strength in the men is double that of the women and grip is about eight kilos higher, while the women are quicker on the nine-hole peg test with both hands and more flexible on the sit and reach, and one-leg balance is the same. In seventeen adolescent beginners the boys have about a third more muscle mass in the arms; in the deep trunk muscles, in fifteen young elite archers, the only difference is the internal oblique on the dominant side. Two studies on archers in favour, descriptive and cross-sectional, and the reversal on flexibility and dexterity rests on just one: reported.
  4. 2026 Reported Aerobic capacity is added: in twenty-one youngsters from a school activity the estimated maximal oxygen uptake is 29.9 ml/kg/min in the boys and 25.1 in the girls, with no statistical test. It is another gap in the boys' favour, but it concerns neither strength nor flexibility, and the status stays reported.

Related

Related articles

Research lines

Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). Between male and female archers the strength gap is large, while on flexibility and dexterity the advantage reverses (Version 1). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/sex-differences-in-archers

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_differenzesessoarcieri,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {Between male and female archers the strength gap is large, while on flexibility and dexterity the advantage reverses},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/sex-differences-in-archers},
  note = {Version 1; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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