How Many Calories Does Archery Burn? Real Numbers
Target archery burns roughly 100-150 calories per 30 minutes for a 120-160 lb adult, based on its 4.3 MET rating — the same energy cost as walking a golf course carrying your clubs. Field and 3D archery can roughly double that.
By the Archery Care Editorial Team
Half an hour of target shooting burns roughly 100 to 150 calories if you weigh between 120 and 160 pounds, and over 200 if you're bigger. The reference here is the Compendium of Physical Activities, the standard exercise-science database, which rates archery at 4.3 METs — the exact same score it gives walking a golf course while carrying your clubs.
Not nothing. Not a spin class either.
Walk a field or 3D course instead of standing on a line, though, and the number climbs fast. Here's the math, and where it bends.
The math, by body weight
A MET is a multiple of your resting metabolic rate, and the conversion is simple: calories per hour roughly equals METs times your body weight in kilograms. At archery's 4.3 METs, a half hour of shooting works out to:
- 120 lb (54 kg): about 117 calories
- 150 lb (68 kg): about 146 calories
- 180 lb (82 kg): about 175 calories
- 210 lb (95 kg): about 205 calories
Heavier archers burn more. Same activity, more mass to hold steady.
One catch: that figure assumes you're actually shooting and pulling arrows, not chatting between ends. The format does quiet work here too. Shoot 60 arrows in six-arrow ends at a 70-meter range and you'll walk about 1.4 km just collecting them — ten round trips of 140 meters each. Indoors at 18 meters, you cover a fraction of that distance for the same arrow count.
Field and 3D rounds burn noticeably more
Stationary target shooting is the floor, not the ceiling. The same Compendium rates moderate-pace walking at 3.8 METs and cross-country hiking at 6.0, and a 3D course — uneven ground, bow in hand, targets scattered through woods — alternates between those bands and the 4.3 of the shooting itself.
Blend it and a fair estimate for a 150-pound archer is 300 to 375 calories an hour, roughly double the flat-range figure. Hilly courses push higher. That's arithmetic on the Compendium values rather than a lab measurement, so treat it as a range, not gospel.
The low end of the sport is funnier. Bowhunting from a stand rates just 2.5 METs — most of it is sitting extremely still in a tree. Hiking out with hunting gear is the opposite extreme at 9.5 METs, harder than most gym cardio.
Draw weight matters less than you'd hope
Pulling 70 pounds on a compound like the Mathews ARC 34 feels like work because it is — for about two seconds. Then the cams let off and you're holding a fraction of that weight at anchor. A recurve is the opposite deal: draw 30 pounds on a Samick Sage and you hold all 30 until release, which is why recurve shooters tend to feel it in the rhomboids and rear delts first.
Either way, each shot is seconds of effort spread across minutes of nocking, aiming, and walking. Over an hour, draw weight nudges your calorie total without transforming it. If you want archery to do more for your fitness, shoot higher volume, not higher poundage — arrow count adds up, extra draw weight mostly just makes you sore.
Your upper back will ache those first hundred-arrow weeks regardless. Most archers find it fades by week three.
So is archery good exercise?
As a pure calorie burner, it's modest — on par with a brisk walk. As strength and posture work, it punches above that number: repeated isometric holds load the upper back and shoulders in a way a step counter never registers.
Don't take up archery to lose weight. Take it up because you'll actually show up — a 3D round you genuinely enjoy beats a treadmill session you skip, and the calorie gap between them is smaller than you'd think. If you're starting from zero and unsure what poundage suits you, the Find My Bow quiz is a sensible first stop.