https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/arm-strength-accuracy Changes to this claim in Matteo Campagna's evidence registry: its status, its year-by-year history, revisions of the page. en-gb https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/arm-strength-accuracyFor almost thirty years the only measurements on archers found no link at all; then from 2014 the supporting results began to arrive, and since then the studies have contradicted one another. Looking at them together shows that the question puts different qualities in one basket, although the line between them is less sharp than it once looked. Grip strength, measured with a dynamometer, fails to link to the score across a run of samples: more than a hundred American archers in 1986, fifty young Malaysians in 2019, forty-five traditional Turkish archers and twenty Indonesian under-13s in 2025, and above all thirty professional compound archers followed for twelve weeks, where changes in grip had nothing to do with changes in score. In a predictive model built on thirty-two Indian archers a weaker grip even pushes towards a higher predicted score, while other samples, from twelve young Malaysian recurve archers to thirty-eight Turkish youngsters, find it linked to the score. Draw strength measured with a bow scale or a dynamometer goes with the score in the samples that have measured it, all of them small, and in sixty-two national-level archers arm strength has a direct effect on the score worth about thirteen per cent of the variance. Endurance measured with push-ups sits in between: it goes with the score in forty-five junior archers, at 0.633, and not in three other samples, among them the fifty young Malaysians. Two warnings remain, though. The first is that the highest correlations, 0.897 in twenty-four people, 0.945 in thirty-one, 0.927 in twenty and 0.890 in thirteen, are too large for a phenomenon of this kind and come from small samples of mixed level, often in journals with questionable editorial standards: in a sample mixing novices with experts, any physical measurement ends up separating one from the other. The second is that being stronger does not mean being steadier, since in twenty-seven compound archers draw strength bore no relation to the stability of the bow arm. While studies keep measuring one quality at a time, the contradiction will not resolve.claim:forza-braccia-precisione:revision:2026-09-19:3Sat, 19 Sep 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/arm-strength-accuracy#storiaFour new samples pull in different directions: in thirty-eight young archers the dominant hand's grip explains twenty-four per cent of the score, in forty-five traditional archers neither grip nor thumb pinch links to the result, in twenty Indonesian under-13s neither grip nor push-ups predict the score, and in a predictive model built on thirty-two Indian archers a weaker grip pushes towards a higher predicted score. In the same year, in ten young archers, draw strength is weakly associated with accuracy, with a p value that does not add up for ten people, and in twenty-seven compound archers draw strength bears no relation to the stability of the bow arm. It stays contested, with a detail that was not visible before: the hand's grip and the strength or endurance of the arm are not the same question.claim:forza-braccia-precisione:history_entry:2026-09-07:2025Mon, 07 Sep 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/arm-strength-accuracy#storiaThe strongest supporting result of all arrives: in thirty-one archers aged 13 to 18, draw strength measured with a bow scale correlates with the score at 0.945 and is the leading predictor in the regression. A correlation that high in thirty-one people of mixed level says more about the sample than about the phenomenon, and the contrary results still stand: contested. In the same year thirteen Indonesian archers give 0.890 between push-ups and score, but there every fitness test correlates with every other between 0.87 and 0.94 and the journal is questionable: it is the same sampling flaw, not a confirmation.claim:forza-braccia-precisione:history_entry:2026-09-07:2022Mon, 07 Sep 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/arm-strength-accuracy#storiaIn twelve young Malaysian recurve archers, right-hand grip strength is linked to the score over thirty-six arrows at 70 metres (rho = 0.614, p = 0.034) and the better archers grip harder, while push-ups bear no relation to the result (rho = 0.049). In that same small sample, though, height and arm span correlate with the score even more strongly, at 0.80 and 0.82: with twelve people, strength cannot be separated from size. One result on each side within the same study, and the status stays contested.claim:forza-braccia-precisione:history_entry:2026-09-07:2020Mon, 07 Sep 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/arm-strength-accuracy#storiaIn twenty young Swedish archers, maximal finger extensor strength does not distinguish the three skill levels judged by the coaches either. There are now two null results and none in favour, but both measure the hand rather than the drawing arm, and the second rests on twenty people and on levels assigned by judgement: they are not enough to say that several well-conducted studies refute the claim, which stays contradicted. A study setting arm strength alongside the score is still missing.claim:forza-braccia-precisione:history_entry:2026-09-07:1999Mon, 07 Sep 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/arm-strength-accuracyclaim:forza-braccia-precisione:new_claim:2026-07-27:contestatoMon, 27 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT