Home  ›  Exercise for Archery  ›  Endurance Training

Endurance Training

Endurance Training? For Archery? Yes! Archery is an endurance sport!

During an outdoor tournament you will be shooting a minimum of 84 arrows per day, drawing your bow about 90 – 95 times, walking about 5 miles and you will doing this for 2 days for local tournaments and national and international competitions lasting for 4 days. Indoor tournaments are easier with only 72 arrows over a 2-3 hour time frame and walking only about 1.5 miles. The big endurance item is the last arrow must be as good as the first arrow.

So what should an archer do? You need to start and maintain an endurance training program! This is not a program for long distance runners. This is not a program for sprinters. This is not a program for triathlon athletes. This is a program for archers. We start easy and work up to some endurance training.

Of the following what do you want to do?

• Walk or hike?
• Swim?
• Ride a Bicycle?
• Cross Country Skiing?
• Snow Shoeing?
• Jogging? (running correctly at a moderate pace)
• Dancing?
• Aerobic Exercise Classes?
• Walking/Jogging/Running on treadmill, cross county ski machine, elliptical
  machine, etc.
• Shoveling Snow? (Only kidding! Snow shoveling does require you to be in
  good aerobic condition though! I stopped living in Michigan because of daily
  snow storms from November through March.)

Hopefully you like one of the things above. My favorite is hiking through the woods watching the birds, mammals, and insects while talking with Kathy, my wife, along the way. Can you do something more strenuous? Sure! Do you need to do something harder? Not at first!

The program is easy to implement. A suggested plan is

Week 1

• Three times a week
• Perform your selected activity for 30 minutes
• Including a warm up period of 5 minutes
• Including a cool down period of 5 minutes
• Break a sweat; that is do it fast enough and hard enough to begin perspiring.

Week 2

•  Three times a week
• Perform you selected activity for 35 minutes
• Including a warm up period of 5 minutes
• Including a cool down period of 5 minutes
• Break a sweat; that is do it fast enough and hard enough to begin perspiring.

Week 3

•  Four times a week
• Perform your selected activity for 35 minutes
• Break a sweat; that is do it fast enough and hard enough to begin perspiring.

Week 4+

•  Four times a week
• Perform you selected activity for 40 minutes
• Including a warm up period of 5 minutes
• Including a cool down period of 5 minutes
• Break a sweat; that is do it fast enough and hard enough to begin perspiring.

By the time you have reached the fourth week, you will be performing your endurance training four days per week, with the peak work out for 3 minutes per workout with a proper warm-up and cool down period. As time goes on, you will  have to work harder to break that sweat; but that is the point of endurance training – to get you into better condition!