Attention has been theorized as a system comprising three networks that can be estimated reliably by the attention network test (ANT); the three networks are defined as alerting, orienting, and conflict control. The present study aims to identify the attention networks that are crucial for elite shooting and archery athletes and to examine whether mindfulness training can improve elite athletes' attention networks. We compared the performances in ANT between 62 elite athletes (27 F/35 M, 23.66 ± 4.95 years) from the Chinese national team of shooting and archery and 49 athletes (19 F/30 M, 19.53 ± 3.38 years) from a provincial team in China. The results indicate three well-functioned attention networks in both groups, but elite athletes in the national team responded faster overall than athletes in the provincial team (Diff = 28.84 ms, p = 0.006). The 62 elite athletes in the national team then received mindfulness training with varied periods ranging from 5 to 8 weeks, after which the ANT was re-administered. After mindfulness training, the elite athletes improved in orienting (Diffspatial = 10.02 ms, p = 0.018) and conflict control networks (Diffincon = 12.01 ms, p = 0.019) compared with their pre-training performances. These results suggest that elite shooting and archery athletes in the national team are more efficient in all three attention networks, which means that they are able to reach the alerting state faster, make better use of environmental information, and suppress interference from distractors more efficiently. Moreover, the orienting and conflict control networks of the elite shooting and archery athletes can be improved by mindfulness training. We conclude that mindfulness practice should be considered as a useful addition to daily training for shooting and archery athletes.

It is well-acknowledged that attention is important for expert performance in sports. However, the role of interoceptive attention, i.e., the attentional mechanism of awareness and conscious focus of bodily somatic and visceral signals, in self-paced and far-aiming sports remains to be explored. This study aims to investigate the relationship of expertise level and interoceptive attention ability in shooting and archery, and to examine if interoceptive attention can be improved by mindfulness training in elite athletes of shooting and archery. We tested the performance differences of 41 elite athletes from the Chinese national team of shooting and archery and 43 non-elite athletes from a provincial team in breath detection task (BDT) and dot flash detection task (DDT), which were designed to measure interoceptive and exteroceptive attention (i.e., attention toward information input of primary sensory), respectively. Furthermore, we applied mindfulness training to the 41 elite athletes for 5–8 weeks and remeasured their performances of BDT and DDT. Results showed that elite athletes outperformed non-elite athletes in BDT (but not in DDT) both in accuracy (DiffBDT = 11.50%, p = 0.004) and in discrimination sensitivity (d′, DiffBDT = 1.159, p = 0.002). Difference in accuracy and d′ reached significant level only in BDT (accuracy: DiffBDT = −8.50%, p = 0.001; d′: DiffBDT = −0.822, p = 0.003) before and after mindfulness training. These results indicate that elite athletes of shooting and archery (i.e., relative to non-elite athletes) can better perceive the somatic and visceral responses or changes and discriminate these signals from noises. Moreover, interoceptive attention can be improved by mindfulness training. These results have important implications for the selection and training of athletes of shooting and archery.