https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/body-sway-while-aiming 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/technique/body-sway-while-aimingStudies that measure the body on a force plate nearly all point the same way, and two systematic reviews count them on the same side: the less the centre of pressure moves while aiming, the better the arrow tends to be. The most informative sample, 37 pre-elite archers, finds that in recurve the less the body moves in the tenth of a second after release the higher the score, and that in compound what counts is the half second before. Within a single archer the picture is consistent: comparing each one's best and worst arrow, on the worst the centre of pressure travels more than twice as far. Three things stop this going further. First, it is not only how much the body moves but how: while aiming, elite archers show smaller but faster sway than intermediates, and on their own worst arrows the centre of pressure runs faster still. Second, the time window changes the answer, because in the largest elite sample the sway that predicts the score is the one after the release, not the one in the second before. Third, the only intervention that reduced sway, eight weeks of core stability work in twelve teenagers, does not report the score and has correlations running the opposite way, while the one study that deliberately made it worse, by changing the position of the feet, found balance down by more than a third and the score unchanged.claim:oscillazione-corpo-mira:revision:2026-09-05:6Sat, 05 Sep 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/body-sway-while-aiming#storiaTwenty-seven recurve archers, nine per level, shoot at 18 metres on a force plate: the range of centre-of-pressure movement during the shot is smaller in the elite than in the beginners, with the intermediates in between and not distinguishable from either, and reaction time to the clicker falls with level. It is a comparison between levels, not between arrows, and the values appear only in graphs. The year before, from the same Malaysian research group as in 2017, an algorithm built to pick out young archers of higher potential shows, in box plots, sway distributions that largely overlap, with no test at all. Also in 2018, and again from that group, four archers compared in pairs, a medallist against a non-medallist and an expert against a novice, show in the graphs a stiller pelvis in the two better archers: one against one, with no statistics, in a journal with doubtful editorial standards. Another association in the same direction: the status stays reported.claim:oscillazione-corpo-mira:history_entry:2026-08-24:2019Mon, 24 Aug 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/body-sway-while-aiming#storiaThe year brings the widest block of evidence on this question, and almost all of it points the same way. In 37 pre-elite archers on force plates the link holds separately in recurve, where the vibration of the bow wrist after release also counts, and in compound, where fore-aft sway and the steadiness of the drawing wrist count; those who move the centre of pressure more also move the segments of the body more, and both measures go with lower scores. In 8 high-level French archers the worst arrows show a faster centre of pressure already during the aim and higher speed peaks after release. A systematic review of 16 studies finds displacement, speed and area of the centre of pressure all pointing the same way, and names instability in the set-up phase as the main indicator. Indirect evidence comes from fifty arrows filmed at international competitions: arm movement is related to the score until heart rate enters the calculation, after which only right-arm movement remains. The status does not rise to corroborated because these are all cross-sectional associations, an intervention that reports the score is still missing, and inside the same data some measures go their own way: a little lateral sway turns up on the tens, head sway does not distinguish levels, and before release the recurve archers sway less than the compound ones while after it the compound archers stay stiller. The picture widens, but in the detail it does not hold together.claim:oscillazione-corpo-mira:history_entry:2026-07-01:2025Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/body-sway-while-aiming#storiaTwo reviews do the counting for the first time: of ten studies that measured body sway, nine find it related to performance, and the phase that weighs most is the release. A single voice dissents, because for that group what counts is stabilising the orientation of the arrow rather than reducing the movement of the centre of mass. The evidence widens, but it all stays associative and the only intervention that has reduced sway, in 2017, did not publish the score. The same year, fifteen university compound archers wearing arch-support insoles move the centre of pressure less during the shot and score slightly more, 9.74 against 9.58 per arrow, but the flat insoles were always tested first, so the order may have counted.claim:oscillazione-corpo-mira:history_entry:2026-07-01:2022Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/body-sway-while-aiming#storiaThe sample changes scale: thirty-nine elite archers from four countries at a World Cup, where a lower sway speed after release goes with higher scores, with the predicted score per arrow falling by almost three points, from 8.1 to 5.4, between the stillest archer and the most mobile. The status returns to reported because the null result of 2011 is a conference abstract on fifteen archers aiming in a laboratory, while this is a sample two and a half times larger, measured while shooting. It does not go beyond reported because sway in the second before release predicts nothing: the window that counts is not the one the claim assumes. The same year brings the first intervention: eight weeks of core stability work reduce sway in twelve young Malaysian archers split into two groups, but the study does not report the score, and its correlations say that those who swayed more scored more, the reverse of what the authors conclude. A result that contradicts itself is not counted on either side. Also in 2017, in thirty-two young Malaysian archers split into higher and lower scorers, the better group sways less at the pelvis (p = 0.001), but the two groups are built by a cluster analysis on the same measures, sway included, and over six arrows: it points the same way without adding weight.claim:oscillazione-corpo-mira:history_entry:2026-07-01:2017Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/body-sway-while-aimingclaim:oscillazione-corpo-mira:new_claim:2026-05-09:riportatoSat, 09 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT