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High-level archers train between three and six hours a day

11 studies · 315 archers measured

ForContextAgainst2010201220142016201820202022202420262015, for, n = 1602011, context, n = 1242026, for, n = 512017, for, n = 302016, against, n = 182025, for, n = 152011, for, n = 112020, context, n = 102025, for, n = 82025, for, n = 82015, for, n = 4
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.

Descriptions of elite groups nearly all fall within the same band. Eleven Malaysian archers train six hours a day in two sessions, ten from the British national team report 34.5 hours a week, eight French archers in the national top twenty about 21, eight Turkish national team archers 30 hours of shooting plus six of strength work, fifteen young Israelis at least seven three-hour sessions. The only study that set out to ask about volume, on 51 elite archers from 22 countries, gives an average of 4.27 hours of shooting a day on five days a week, but it also shows where the band breaks down: 56.8 per cent of the archers fall between three and six hours, while 21.6 per cent train for two hours and 21.5 per cent for seven or more. The women of the Polish national team report 13.5 hours a week, about two a day, and within that same squad the hours accumulated over a career range from 2,912 to 19,448. All of these are self-reports, almost always collected to describe the participants of studies on something else, in countries with very different training systems: the order of magnitude holds, a precise number does not.

Also phrased as: "how many hours do professional archers train"; "how many arrows does an elite archer shoot"; "training hours of Olympic archers"; "training volume in high-level archery"; "elite archers shoot all day"

In practice

It is said that the best archers in the world shoot all day, five or six hours and hundreds of arrows, and that without that kind of volume nobody reaches the top.

Evidence

Status history

  1. 2011 Reported The first two descriptions arrive: eleven Malaysian elite archers train six hours a day in two sessions, and at a Korean sports high school the athletes selected for national competitions, eight archers among them, do three or four hours a day, six days a week, from age 12 to 17. These are lines in the sample descriptions of studies that were measuring something else, and the Korean figure does not separate the archers from the rest: limited evidence in favour, so the status is reported.
  2. 2015 Reported One hundred and sixty Indian university archers report three or four hours a day, six days a week, and four Malaysian archers of Olympic level shoot between 250 and 300 arrows a day in two sessions. It is the same order of magnitude in another country, but both journals have doubtful editorial standards, so they do not move the status, which remains reported.
  3. 2016 Contested The first figure that does not fit comes from the Polish national team: eight women archers, two of them Olympians, report an average of 13.5 hours a week, about two a day, and the hours they have accumulated over their careers range from 2,912 to 19,448. Within the same level, volume varies many times over. Setting aside the two descriptions in doubtful venues, a single elite sample remains in favour and one of similar weight stands against: for now the studies of archers point in opposite directions, and the status is contested.
  4. 2017 Reported Ten British national team archers of Olympic level report 34.5 hours of training a week, about five hours a day over seven days, nearly six over six, against 4.4 at a university club. With two elite samples in sound venues inside the band and one below it, the balance tips back towards the claim: reported, bearing in mind that volume depends heavily on the system an archer trains in.
  5. 2020 Reported Ten Cypriot national-level archers train five or six days a week for two or three hours a day, at the lower edge of the band. They are a step below the international elite, and the figure fits with hours rising with level rather than contradicting the band: the status remains reported.
  6. 2025 Reported Three elite samples from different countries sit inside the band: eight French archers in the national top twenty train about 21 hours a week, fifteen young Israelis do at least seven three-hour sessions plus two of strength work, eight Turkish national team archers at the federation centre reach 30 hours of shooting plus six of strength work. These are still descriptions of the participants of studies on other topics, so the claim grows stronger on the order of magnitude but stays at reported.
  7. 2026 Reported For the first time volume is one of the study's questions rather than a background detail: 51 elite archers from 22 countries report 4.27 hours of shooting a day on five days a week. The average falls inside the band, but only just over half the archers do, 56.8 per cent: one in five trains for two hours, one in five for seven or more. The figure confirms the order of magnitude and shows how wide the variation is: reported.

Related

Related articles

Research lines

Studies describe groups of archers, and your own numbers show how far the finding applies to your shooting.

See the programme
Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). High-level archers train between three and six hours a day (Version 1). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/training-hours-high-level-archers

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_volumeallenamentoelite,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {High-level archers train between three and six hours a day},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/training-hours-high-level-archers},
  note = {Version 1; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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