Matteo Campagna
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Flat feet are more common among archers than in running sports such as football

2 studies · 70 archers measured

ForContextAgainst202420262024, for, n = 402024, context, n = 402025, context, n = 30
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.

There is only one comparison, and it is tiny. In 2024, at a Jakarta university, ten archers, ten footballers, ten futsal players and ten pencak silat practitioners leave a wet footprint: flat feet affect three archers out of ten against one in ten in football and futsal, but four in ten in pencak silat, and nobody, in any of the four sports, has a high arch. There is no statistical test, and with ten people per group the difference between three and one may be chance. In 2025 thirty Indian archers measured with the Foot Posture Index, a different instrument, give a less clear picture: the most common shape is normal, with four pronated feet on the left and eight on the right, and foot posture is not linked to body sway measured on a platform. What can be said is that in one group of ten archers flat feet were more common than among footballers, not that archery has a typical foot, and still less that foot shape matters for aiming.

Also phrased as: "flat feet in archers"; "foot arch and archery"; "an archer's foot shape"; "pronated foot and aiming"; "foot support on the shooting line"

In practice

You hear that someone who spends hours standing still on the shooting line ends up loading the foot differently from someone who runs, and that flat feet make the base of support less steady when aiming.

Evidence

Status history

  1. 2024 Reported The question begins with ten Indonesian university archers compared with footballers, futsal players and pencak silat practitioners: flat feet affect three archers out of ten against one in ten in football and futsal, but four in ten in pencak silat, and nobody has a high arch. Ten people per group, a wet footprint as the measure and no statistical test: reported.
  2. 2025 Reported Thirty Indian archers measured with the Foot Posture Index give a less clear picture: the most common shape is normal, with four pronated feet on the left and eight on the right, and foot posture is not linked to body sway. A different instrument and no comparison group from other sports, so it says nothing about relative frequency: the status stays reported, and the practical part, that the foot matters for aiming, finds no support.

Related

Related articles

Research lines

Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). Flat feet are more common among archers than in running sports such as football (Version 1). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/health/flat-feet-archers

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_piedepiattoarcieri,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {Flat feet are more common among archers than in running sports such as football},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/health/flat-feet-archers},
  note = {Version 1; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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