# olympic archery draw weight?



## JasonJ (Feb 10, 2016)

Those two items are not dependent on each other. Are you new to archery? Been shooting for a while? It makes a difference if you're just starting out and wanting to choose a bow for target and oly, or if you've been shooting bows for 20 years and just moving over to this style. 

I think I had read that most Olympic archers are drawing in the 40-48# ish, range. But unless you are going to be competing in events that limit or restrict bow draw weight, I'd think 40# is fine so long as you can keep proper form, hit what you intend to, and do it well.


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## Viper1 (Aug 21, 2003)

P - 

New Oly type (male) shooters typically start in the sub-30# range. My new guys start around 26-28# at their draw length. Seasoned shooters are in the high 30# to low 40's and very, VERY few in the high 40#s to even low 50#s. (There's really no advantage to the extra weight.)

When you say "Olympic archers" you have to be careful. Just because some one is shooting an Olympic style bow doesn't mean he has a clue as to what he's doing.
Look in the FITA classifieds, and see how many 44# limbs are up for sale or trade. 

Viper1 out.


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## Stash (Jun 1, 2002)

The top international men usually are in the mid 40s to low 50s and the women in the high 30s to mid 40s, but these people train and shoot for hours a day, every day, for years.

You need to shoot a bow weight you can handle to the last shot of the day. Start low, learn your form, develop your strength and move up gradually.


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## Azzurri (Mar 10, 2014)

Phanomenal said:


> Hi I was wondering if anyone know what draw weight do olympic archers use. I want to target shoot with a recurve but don't know what bow I should buy. I currently have a 40lb pse stalker that I can shoot all day. is that to much or to little for target archery?


I do both Oly and Trad. World class archers generally shoot 40-55, but they train all day, several days a week, and the notion of struggling through a shaking shot is not their idea of how to do it. However, at least one US female Olympian from the 80s-90s was in the high 20s.

You need a draw weight that you can pull through a clicker 100-200 arrows a day without breaking down physically and shaking, and while maintaining a high level of accuracy. Most of the people I know who compete but don't do it for a living started in the 20s and the serious ones use high 30s. I actually get by mid to low 20s, which will do you fine indoors but is a competitive disadvantage outdoors. The idea is to dominate your weight and not lose any points because of going too high. No one cares how macho you are in target circles. They notice scores. They would pay more attention to equipment creativity and innovation than to draw weight.

Part of my routine when doing Oly is strength work. You are not necessarily trying to stay still on draw weight. But you are smart about it as you progress, the idea is to find the sweet spot where you can handle the weight and are handing away nothing being overbowed. If I initially feel like I gain accuracy from 2-4# more but it tires me out at the end and I lose form and accuracy, and end up -2 pts, who cares if in theory "I could handle more weight," if doing so costs me points. There are trad type situations where you need poundage to hunt or something but for Oly most of us are points-driven and wouldn't cost ourselves points to push more weight (unless there is some sort of big picture plan).


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