The right draw weight is the one you control with the same technique from the first arrow to the last, and the measurements on archers explain why it should sit well below what you could draw once. In two small groups of experienced archers the bow took on average 37 and 44% of their maximal drawing strength; in another study, holding the shooting position at a slightly higher share, between 40 and 50% of maximal strength, brought the muscle to exhaustion in 52 seconds on average.
In clubs, though, draw weight is often chosen by other yardsticks: the archer's strength, what clubmates shoot, the feeling that the bow has become light. Below I go through what the measurements say about each of these, the three practical criteria that follow from them, how to go up or down in poundage and what changes with level, with age and between recurve, compound and traditional bows.
This is the guide to choosing. What the studies have measured on the link between pounds and score, and how many pounds top-level groups draw from one study to the next, I have gathered in a separate article, draw weight and score in the research.
The figure on the limbs and the weight you actually pull
Draw weight is the force needed to bring the string to full draw, and the figure printed on the limbs applies at a reference draw length, usually 28 inches. An archer with a shorter draw pulls less than that figure, one with a longer draw pulls more. Even the reference is not the same for everyone: in a Japanese study one brand measured at 28 inches from the back of the bow and the other at 26 from the pivot point of the grip, two conventions that match only because the pivot and the back are about two inches apart.
Two measurements show how large the gap can be. In 49 beginners on a university course, with bows marked at 26 inches, the women pulled 21.24 lb on average against the 26.18 marked and the men 30.55 against 33.52, and in the women the marked figure said almost nothing about the actual draw weight. In six Japanese university archers drawing between 27.5 and 29 inches, close to the reference, the measured draw weight was 36.5 lb against the 36 stated. In the registry the claim that the draw weight marked on the bow differs from what the archer actually pulls at their own draw length is contested, because the two studies appear to contradict each other; read together they describe the same rule, in which the figure holds at the reference draw length and drifts away from it as the draw length changes. Before applying any criterion, then, weigh the bow with a bow scale at your own draw length and write that figure down, since it is the only one worth comparing over time.
How much of your strength goes into the bow
The most common advice is to choose draw weight by strength, on the basis that a stronger archer can go heavier. The studies do not bear this out. In 49 beginners maximal drawing strength was unrelated to the draw weight of the bow, with correlations between 0.05 and 0.30, although there the bows were assigned by the instructors; in eight experienced archers with FITA competition experience arm strength ranged from 255 to 795 newtons while their bows sat between 178 and 215, with no relation at all. The claim that stronger archers shoot heavier draw weights is contradicted in the registry, by two small studies.
For anyone choosing a bow, the useful figure is the fraction: how much of their strength an archer puts into the bow. In fifteen elite and sub-elite recurve archers maximal strength measured in the aiming position was 532 newtons and the bow asked for 196, 37% on average; in the eight experienced archers the bow took 44% on the group means, with individual fractions between 27 and 81%. The claim that elite archers shoot a draw weight far below their maximal drawing strength is reported. The beginners on that university course also sat between 41 and 53%, calculated from the means, so shooting well below your maximum is common at every level and does not set the elite apart.
Why so much margin is needed is suggested by a measurement from 1993. Seven university archers held the shooting position with their own bows until exhaustion: according to the authors the effort amounted to about 40-50% of maximal push-pull force, measured on an ergometer, and the hold lasted 52 seconds on average, with the electrical signal of the posterior deltoid showing the classic sign of fatigue in all seven. A shot lasts a few seconds, so that minute or less measures the reserve rather than what happens on each arrow, but it shows that at that share the reserve is short. The claim that holding the shooting position demands between forty and fifty per cent of maximal force is reported, on a single small sample.
The study of the fifteen recurve archers also contains a threshold: when the bow exceeded 40% of maximal strength, scores tended to fall. The result, however, stops just short of statistical significance (p = 0.054), it comes from a conference abstract that does not explain how the 40% was chosen, and with fifteen archers of very different levels part of the relationship may reflect level rather than draw weight. That is why the idea that above 40% of maximal strength a heavier draw weight goes with lower scores is not studied in the registry: it is a trend, useful as an order of magnitude and not as a threshold to apply. The same paper has a firmer result that points the same practical way: the more steadily the shoulder girdle holds a force equal to the archer's own draw weight, the higher the score.
Body build does not say much either. The only data come from 33 Indian archers of national and international level, in whom draw weight rose in bodies that were heavier for their height, with a modest correlation; the sample, however, mixes recurve and compound without separating them. The claim that archers with a sturdier build shoot heavier draw weights is reported as an association in a single group, and it does not say whether the build allows the pounds or the pounds build the body.
Three practical criteria
Three criteria follow from these measurements. None of them looks at the absolute figure, because the same draw weight can be light for one archer and too much for another.
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A wide margin on strength
In the experienced archers measured, the bow took on average between 37 and 44% of maximal drawing strength. That is the order of magnitude to aim for, not a threshold: if you can measure your strength in the aiming position with a dynamometer, the ratio is a figure worth tracking over time, and if not, the other two criteria act as its warning light.
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The hold lasts to the final ends
At full draw you keep expanding through to the release, and the last arrows of a long session look like the first. With a narrow margin the reserve is short, and fatigue tends to show in the movement before it shows in the score.
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Your shooting form stays the same
With your bow the trunk does not arch backwards and the bow-arm elbow does not lock into extension. These are the compensations coaches look for when a bow is too heavy, and a recent measurement has seen them, in part of its sample.
The second criterion rests on what is known about fatigue, which is less than many assume. The registry has a single measurement of scores falling over a session, in sixteen adults who had never shot before: over 80 arrows their score dropped by 8% on average from one block of arrows to the next, which is why the claim that the score drops as the session goes on is transferred from another population. In trained archers the data come from an imposed load rather than a session: after sixty 20-second holds at full draw, twelve Italian archers of intermediate and high level shot ten arrows at twelve metres with no significant drop in score, while the bow swayed 20% more on average. The fatigue showed in the movement, and that is where to look.
The third criterion has a recent measurement, which needs careful reading. Thirteen university archers, seven men and six women of mixed experience, shot with 20, 25 and 32 lb bows while inertial sensors recorded their body angles. In the women, moving from 25 to 32 lb, the bow-arm elbow went from slight flexion to extension, from +7 and +4 degrees to about -9, and the trunk arched back more than twice as far, from about -8 to -17 degrees; in the men none of the comparisons between the three bows was significant. The bows, however, were tried in the same session and always from lightest to heaviest, so draw weight, order and fatigue cannot be pulled apart, and with six or seven people per group a null result does not rule out an effect. The claim that with a heavier draw weight the trunk, shoulder and elbow angles change during the shot is contested, because the only sample points two ways depending on sex.
In the same group one angle barely changed: the drawing elbow sat at around 157 degrees at the release whatever the bow, in both sexes. That fits what other research groups find, namely that some of the angles of the shot are nearly identical in every archer while others change from archer to archer, a reported but descriptive claim that no study links to the score. In those data, then, the change showed in the trunk and the bow arm, not in the drawing elbow.
How comfortable it feels, and what the pounds cost
The last club yardstick is feel: when the bow starts to feel light, you go up. The only study in the registry that has followed it over time, on 49 beginners measured before and after a 24-lesson course, finds that maximal strength and the pull judged comfortable both rise, but independently: the correlation between the two increases is 0.05 in the women and -0.16 in the men, so those who gain the most strength are not the ones who raise their comfortable load the most. After four lessons, moreover, all of them described the bow they had been given as comfortable, and kept it for the rest of the course. The claim that when an archer gains strength, the draw weight that feels comfortable does not change accordingly is reported, with the limitation of a single study on beginners with no control group, and it is already a reason not to leave the choice to feel alone.
The extra pounds also carry a cost, arrow by arrow. In an experiment on ten university archers, each shooting three draw weights, one arrow cost the men 0.47, 0.59 and 0.73 kcal at 32, 42 and 51 lb and the women 0.27, 0.33 and 0.40 kcal at 25, 35 and 45 lb. The claim that more pounds raise the energy cost of each arrow is reported, and it should be read on its own scale: even with the heaviest bow, shooting remains a low-intensity activity, and heart rate returned to resting level a couple of minutes after the end of the series.
How to tell whether your draw weight is too high
The three criteria can be checked on the range with four simple tests, best done in an ordinary session rather than on a day when you happen to be in particularly good form.
The session test compares the first ends with the last ends of a long session. If the last ones are clearly worse, with a ragged release, a shifting anchor or expansion that stalls, draw weight is one of the suspects, along with the number of arrows.
The form test needs a clubmate or a phone: have yourself filmed from the side and from behind at the start and at the end of a session, and look at whether the trunk arches backwards and whether the bow-arm elbow locks into extension. These are the signs that the measurement on the thirteen archers saw in the women when they moved to the heavier bow.
The tremor test watches the shoulder and the bow arm at full draw. Before blaming the pounds, though, check the height of the drawing elbow. In ten beginners holding simulated positions with a 26 lb recurve, with the drawing arm at 100 and 110 degrees of elevation the shoulder shook more than at 90, while muscle activity did not change with height and rose only at full draw. These are beginners holding a position without shooting, so the claim that holding the drawing elbow above shoulder height makes the hold less steady is transferred from another population, but it is a reminder that tremor can come from the geometry of the shot and not only from the load. The bow arm, moreover, is not a passive prop: in the most complete study of both sides of the body, on five Russian recurve masters of sport, the drawing side dominated in most muscles, but the bow side was more active in the serratus anterior, the pectoralis major and the latissimus dorsi, and the claim that in the shot the drawing side works harder than the bow side is contested.
The next-day test looks at what lingers: pain or tension in the shoulder the day after training can signal excessive load, which may come from the draw weight, the number of arrows or both. Pain that keeps coming back is not something to manage by changing poundage on your own: get it looked at.
Going up and coming down in poundage
How fast to go up is a matter of coaching experience more than of measurement, and the shared advice is cautious: go up in small steps, only when your current draw weight passes all three criteria, and give the body a few weeks to absorb each change before adding load. Going up quickly forces the body to compensate, and compensations in shooting form are exactly what the third criterion looks for.
The change itself, up or down, is best made in stages. Bring in the new draw weight with a reduced number of arrows, return to full volume once technique holds at your usual distances, and only then add competition conditions: a clock, scoring, simulated rounds. If technique clearly gives way at any stage, go back a step rather than forcing it. Each change in poundage also means checking the arrows again, because arrow spine has to be matched to draw weight and arrow length, and with the spine the whole tune.
It also pays to change one thing at a time, because the load is not only the pounds. In seven elite archers who shot with and without stabilisers at 70 and 90 metres, without stabilisers electrical activity was lower in almost all the muscles recorded, except in the forearm that holds the bow, which worked harder. The claim that shooting with stabilisers costs the muscles more work is reported, with a single study, nine arrows per condition and archers who had never shot without them; electrical activity, moreover, measures how switched on a muscle is, not how much force it produces. Still, if you raise the poundage and add weight to your stabilisers at the same time and your hold gets worse, you cannot tell which of the two changes is responsible.
Coming down in poundage is as legitimate as going up, and it makes sense when the reserve drops or the shot needs rebuilding: during an injury, after a long break, as the years go by, while you rework part of your technique. On breaks there is a single experiment, on sedentary young men who had learnt to shoot for the occasion: after twelve weeks of shooting and twelve of rest their strength fell but stayed above where it started, and in the registry the claim that strength gained through shooting is partly lost when you stop is reported. How far to come down and for how long depends on the individual, and the three criteria will tell you better than any table.
Recurve, compound and traditional bows
In Olympic recurve the question soon becomes how many pounds the best archers draw, and the averages of top-level groups, together with what the studies find on pounds and score, are set out in draw weight and score in the research. For anyone choosing, what matters is that none of those averages says what an individual archer should shoot, so in recurve too the three criteria remain the reference.
In compound the stated figure is the peak of the draw-force curve, and at full draw the cams shed much of it: in a production compound measured in the laboratory the let-off was about 65%, and in a model of an eccentric-wheel compound the holding force is usually about a third of the peak. The claim that a compound bow stores between 70 and 100 joules and sheds about two thirds of the force at full draw is reported, with measurements on single bows. At the 2025 World Cup stage in Shanghai compound archers shot 56.6 lb on average against 46.8 in recurve, with draw weights far more uniform from archer to archer, a standard deviation of 3.0 lb against 6.0, and the claim that elite compound archers draw more pounds than recurve archers is reported. For a compound archer, then, the holding criterion applies to the force left at full draw, while the peak weighs on the draw.
In instinctive and traditional archery you often hear that an adult with a few years' experience ends up at around forty pounds, and the two samples closest to the question, published in the same year, point that way: ten elite Malaysian traditional archers shooting the Mamluk technique averaged 41.5 lb, and ten experienced Turkish archers with composite recurves 42.25, with bows between 38 and 55. These are groups of ten people described in two regional journals, and the claim that experienced traditional archers shoot bows of around forty pounds is reported: forty pounds is a common value in these two schools, not a reference point for traditional archery as a whole, which brings together very different bows and traditions.
Draw weight for young archers
For archers who are still growing the choice needs more care. Archery has one documented case, from 1999: an eleven-year-old boy who competed almost every summer Sunday with a 28 lb bow, shooting up to 144 arrows in a day, suffered an overuse injury of the growth plate in the shoulder of his non-dominant arm, was out for four months and went back to shooting with a 24 lb bow, which the authors considered more suitable for his age. Ten months earlier he had had a milder episode, which settled after a few days' rest, and the first X-rays had been read as normal. The claim that in young archers the load of shooting, from draw weight and arrows shot in competition, can cause an overuse injury to the shoulder is reported: a single case shows that it can happen, not how often or above what load.
The practice among coaches and in the manuals is to keep draw weights low in youth categories and to ration the arrows, and between a little less and a little more, less is the better choice, because strength comes with age while an overuse injury picked up young can cost a season. The exact figures vary with age, build and category, so it is better to work with a coach than to trust a generic table.
When to revisit the choice
A sustainable draw weight changes over time: it rises with the specific strength built over months and years, falls after a break or an injury, and shifts with age and with the time you can give to training. That is why the choice is worth revisiting at every change of season and after every interruption, weighing the bow at your own draw length and running through the three criteria again. If it passes them, today's draw weight is the one to keep; if it does not, come down a few pounds and repeat the tests after a few weeks.