Pre-shot routine in archery: how to build one on evidence

The pre-shot routine is the fixed sequence of physical, visual, breathing and mental actions an archer repeats on every arrow, from setting the fingers on the string to the release. In recurve it usually lasts between 6 and 10 seconds, and what makes it useful is that it stays the same: the same steps, in the same order, with timing that gets closer and closer from one arrow to the next. Archers who have shot for years nearly always have one, even if they do not call it that; beginners often have none yet.

This article covers what to put into it, how long it should last, what to cut and how to build it in eight weeks, together with what the registry has gathered on the seconds before the shot. There are fewer measurements than the advice heard on the range would suggest, and on one piece of that advice they point the other way: in the two experiments run on archers, a relaxation session just before shooting brought no extra points.

Why a pre-shot routine helps

The usual explanation comes from sport psychology: a sequence repeated thousands of times comes to recall the physical and mental state in which it was trained, so simply starting it brings back the calm and focus a clean shot needs. That is why it is considered most valuable in competition, when crowd, stakes, wind and travel pull an archer away from their usual state. There is also a more practical argument: without a routine, every arrow forces you to decide everything again (when to breathe, how long to look, when to let go), and every decision made on the spot is one more chance to change something.

In archers this explanation has been observed more than measured. The clearest case concerns target panic, and it comes from a study made of accounts: a year at an English university club, written up by a researcher who was a member and had target panic himself. The archers who suffered from it leaned on an unvarying shot sequence, sometimes of just three words: one archer repeated her coach's cues before every arrow, front elbow, back elbow, anchor. According to the author the consistency of the sequence matters more than its content, because the sequence draws attention away from the heartbeat and the breathing, which become intrusive with target panic.

The same study sets two limits, though. Re-establishing the shot this way is not always possible or enough, and a step in the sequence can itself become the point where the problem flares up again; thinking about the symptom is also enough to bring it back. There are no measurements of either the symptom or the score, so it is an observation to be taken as such. On why target panic behaves like this I have developed a hypothesis of my own, target panic as the de-automatisation of the movement: it is my reading, not a finding of the research.

The elements of a well-built routine

Routines that hold up have four elements in common. Without them the sequence stays a ritual, pleasant to go through but with nothing to keep it steady from one arrow to the next.

1. An anchor point that never changes

   The contact point between hand and face must be identical on every arrow. It is geometry: by the same reckoning that turns fractions of a millimetre while aiming into centimetres on the target, a few millimetres of difference at the anchor point move the arrow by centimetres at 70 metres. The figure is a calculation rather than a measurement on archers, but it is enough to explain why the anchor is the base for everything else.

2. Breathing with a fixed pattern

   The breathing pattern is decided once and then left alone: for example a couple of full breaths before raising the bow, some air let out during the draw and the breath held, without forcing it, while aiming. The aim is for breathing to stop being a variable. That experienced archers repeat it identically on every shot, though, has been seen in only one study, from 1964 and on kyudo, with shots that were only imagined or watched on film.

3. A steady gaze on the target

   Quiet eye is the final fixation on the gold before the release: in Olympic-level archers from the British squad it lasted almost two seconds, against less than one in beginners. In the only study on archers a longer fixation went with better accuracy, but the comparison was between experts and beginners, so it may simply mean that people who have shot for years fixate for longer.

4. A cue word

   It is a short word or image that keeps attention on the movement, such as "back" or "expand", rather than on the outcome. As far as it has been measured, though, what you say to yourself carries little weight for the score: in 115 American recurve archers how much they talked to themselves in competition, technical self-instructions included, bore no relation to their season average, and in sixteen young elite archers looking at the sight rather than feeling the body did not change the score. The cue word is there to pace the sequence and keep the mind on the movement, not to raise the score on its own.

On breathing the registry has two more pieces of data, and both argue against copying someone else's pattern. The first comes from a sensor shirt tried on two archers at 70 metres: before the shot one breathed between 20 and 26 breaths a minute, the other between 7 and 15, and over the session only the second slowed down. Two people say nothing about how wide the difference between archers is, and the study does not look at the score, but they are enough to show that two trained archers can shoot at very different rhythms. In a routine, then, it makes sense to fix where the breath falls in relation to the phases of the shot, rather than how many breaths a minute to take.

The second concerns anxiety. In thirty-nine Turkish beginners measured at rest before shooting, those reporting more anxiety breathed faster, while during the shooting, across the whole group, the link reversed. The study appeared in a journal with questionable editorial standards: the registry reports it but does not use it to decide, and the question remains not studied.

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How long a pre-shot routine should last

In Olympic recurve the routine typically runs to 6-10 seconds, from setting the fingers on the string to the release. It is a practical guideline, and the laboratory measurement falls within it: in fifteen recurve archers measured indoors, the time from the fingers taking the string to the release averaged a little over eight seconds, with about two seconds for set-up and raise, two and a half for the draw and three and a half of aiming. For compound and instinctive shooting I give no figures, because timing varies a great deal with the release aid, the style and the person.

More important than the duration itself is consistency: an 8-second routine that takes almost the same time on every arrow is more useful than a 6-second one that stretches or shrinks each time. There is no measured threshold to hit, and nobody repeats the same time on every arrow: even in archers from the German national squads the time between the clicker and the release changed from one arrow to the next, by roughly 6 to 12 milliseconds either way. The practical goal is timing that gets closer and closer, not timing that is identical.

Regular timing shows up on the target too. In those seven German archers those who kept the clicker-to-release time most consistent had the highest average, and two reviews conclude that among elite archers the consistency of that time matters more than its length, which in itself lasts between 0.15 and 0.2 seconds. In the fifteen archers measured indoors, moreover, the arrow landed further from the centre when that time strayed from the archer's usual one. On its own, though, regular timing does not decide the score: the full model, which took arrow speed into account as well as the timings, explained 7.7% of where the arrow landed, a small share that in competition adds to everything else.

Relaxing just before shooting

Before a competition archers are often advised to set aside a few minutes to relax, loosen the shoulders and clear the mind, on the idea that a relaxed archer shoots better. Tested on archers, the advice brought no points: a relaxation session right before shooting did not change the score in either of the two experiments run.

In the first, from 1999, twenty young Swedish archers aged 13 to 18 spent forty-five minutes in a flotation tank or sitting in an armchair reading the paper, in random order and six weeks apart, and then shot twelve arrows at 18 metres: no difference in score between the two conditions. What changed was how the shooting felt, because after the tank perceived exertion dropped, above all in the weaker archers. In the second, from 2019, nineteen experienced archers in Hong Kong did ten minutes of Tai Chi or ten of stretching, and the arrows landed the same distance from the centre either way; that study appeared in a journal with questionable editorial standards, so on its own it would decide nothing.

The samples are small, and there is no flotation tank at a tournament. A relaxation programme repeated over several weeks is also a different matter: in one study of novices it went with higher scores, although there was no group doing nothing for comparison. A relaxation session may change how the shooting feels, as perceived exertion did after the tank, but in these studies the points did not come from there. That is why, as I see it, the time before a competition is better spent settling into your own routine.

What to cut from the routine

Many archers build routines cluttered with steps that feel useful but make the sequence longer and less regular, which makes choosing what to remove as important as choosing what to include.

• Cut 01

  Judgemental phrases

  Phrases such as "don't miss", "I need a ten" or "watch the wind" shift attention from the movement to the outcome, and many archers feel them raise tension.

  Their place goes to the routine's cue word, always the same one, which says what to do rather than what to avoid.

• Cut 02

  The long mental checklist

  Running through posture, anchor point, expansion, aim and release as a five-item list takes up attention at the very moment the shot should be running by itself.

  Two or three short cue words are enough. Practice has to take care of the rest.

• Cut 03

  Gestures made at random

  Touching a jacket button, adjusting your glasses, cracking your neck: as long as these are gestures you sometimes make and sometimes do not, they add time and irregularity to the sequence.

  If a gesture does nothing for the shot, it is better cut. If you make it every time, the same way and at the same point, it is already part of the sequence.

How to build your routine in 8 weeks

A routine that works is built through an orderly process, and eight weeks is a reasonable time to make it stable. Skipping steps shortens the timeline on paper and lengthens it on the range.

1. Weeks 1-2

   Audit your current routine

   Film 24 arrows in a normal training session and work out the sequence, the elements present, the average duration and how much it changes from one arrow to the next. Record the starting point as it is, not as you would like it to be.

2. Weeks 3-4

   Choose the elements

   Define the four elements of your routine (anchor point, breathing, gaze, cue word) and write them down. Then time the sequence, performed deliberately, until the duration settles.

3. Weeks 5-6

   Consolidation

   Work on the routine alone, at short distances (3-10 metres), with few arrows and many repetitions of the sequence. The goal is a duration that changes less and less from one arrow to the next.

4. Weeks 7-8

   Testing under pressure

   Add pressure one step at a time: first a visible clock, then the score called out after each end, then someone watching, and finally a full competition simulation with cumulative scoring and time pressure. If the routine changes, go back to consolidation.

The last two weeks are there because a routine built only at your home range, on your own and with no clock, gets used to those conditions, and a new venue, a crowd or a stopwatch can be enough for it to lose its hold. Exposing it gradually to different settings while you build it is how it reaches competition still recognisable.

Three example routines

To make the principles concrete, here are three routines, one per division. They are reference points for seeing how the elements combine in practice, not prescriptions: timing and steps have to be cut to fit the archer.

• Routine A · Recurve

  About 8 seconds

  Sec 0-2: string and grip set, a breath, bow raised.
  Sec 2-4.5: draw to an anchor under the chin, letting some air out.
  Sec 4.5-8: breath held, aiming with a steady gaze on the gold, cue word "back", final draw through the clicker.
  Around the eighth second the clicker falls, and the release follows within about two tenths of a second.

  What matters more than the eight seconds themselves is that the sequence takes almost the same time on every arrow. The cue "back" directs attention to expansion, not to the release.

• Routine B · Compound

  The same structure, with a release aid

  Release aid hooked on, a breath.
  Draw to the wall and anchor always at the same point on the jaw, with the peep lined up.
  Bubble checked, breath held, steady gaze on the gold, cue word "colour".
  Steady pressure on the trigger, or back tension with a hinge release, until the shot goes.

  The cue "colour" keeps visual attention on the target while the pressure on the release builds, rather than on the moment the shot will go.

• Routine C · Instinctive

  A shorter sequence

  Foot position and shoulder-hip alignment.
  A fluid draw to anchor.
  Gaze on a single point, the one where the arrow should land.
  Release without a long aiming pause.

  Without a sight the weight of the routine moves to the gaze, and the sequence tends to get shorter.

Three common problems in competition

Even with a sound structure certain problems keep coming back, and recognising them helps you deal with them before they turn into habits.

• Problem 01

  The routine that stretches

  In competition many archers stretch their routine compared with training, adding a breath or going back into the aim a second time because they feel they need more time. When the extra time ends up in the aim, the bow arm stays under load for longer; the studies linking a longer aim to worse arrows, though, do not agree with one another, because the link changes direction from one archer to the next.

  At the 2007 World Championships, in the two recurve champions, the wait before raising the bow varied a great deal from one round to the next, from 6.7 to 17.9 seconds on average per match for the men's champion, while the aim stayed the same length. Of all the phases of the shot, the wait was the one that stretched and shrank the most, and the aim the only one the round did not shift; the study does not say whether a longer wait helps or hurts the score.

• Problem 02

  The cue word that shifts

  Under pressure the cue word tends to change: "back" becomes "now", "expand" becomes "centre", and a judgemental phrase takes the place of the one about the movement.

  Noticing it is the first step, but bringing it back to its original form takes deliberate practice under simulated competition conditions.

• Problem 03

  No reset after a bad arrow

  After a seven or an eight the routine starts again unchanged, when a short reset would help to break away from it: lower the bow, take a breath, then nock again.

  The routine stays the same; the reset comes before you start it, so it does not alter it.

These problems turn up in almost every archer and are part of consolidation. Expecting the routine in competition to be identical to the one on the practice range is unrealistic: what you are after is a routine that stays recognisable when the context puts it under strain, and the ability to notice when it starts to change.

Maintaining the routine over time

Once built, a routine does not stay good on its own: without maintenance small variations accumulate until it loses its shape. Four habits keep it in order.

The first is a video review every three months: record 24 arrows in normal conditions and compare timing and sequence with your baseline, and if the average duration has clearly shifted, or the variation has grown, a targeted consolidation cycle is due.

The second is recovery after a break, because an enforced stop (injury, holidays, exams) costs the routine its regularity: the first two or three sessions back should go on finding the timing again, not on volume.

The third is adapting to difficult conditions, since the baseline routine is set for a neutral day: strong wind, cold or unfamiliar distances may call for small adjustments, which have to be built and tested in training, never improvised on competition day.

The fourth is the post-competition debrief: in the 24-48 hours afterwards, go back over how the routine held up in each phase, where it stayed solid, where it broke down, which parts were skipped or shortened. Without this step the same errors tend to recur from one competition to the next.

@misc{campagna2026_routinepretirotiroconarco,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {Pre-shot routine in archery: how to build one on evidence},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/articoli/pre-shot-routine-in-archery},
  note = {accessed 2026-10-16}
}