https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/physical-conditioning-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/physical-conditioning-accuracyOn this question the direction is almost unanimous and the quality of the designs is where it falls short. From 2017 onwards a dozen studies on archers, from strength work with grip exercises to plyometrics, from the Indonesian circuits to the weights used by Malaysian archers, all report a higher score after the programme, and none reports a decline. The two results that carry the most weight are also the ones whose limits teach the most. In sixty Indian national-level archers, twelve weeks of gym strength work are worth 36.5 points more than the control over seventy-two arrows, and the control does not move in twelve weeks, but each group trained at a different academy. In thirty-eight randomly assigned competitive archers, twelve weeks of circuit training take the score per arrow from 7.1 to 8.6, with arrow spread down by a quarter, while the group training as usual stays where it is; that circuit, however, also involved shooting, and the comparison between the groups is not reported. Where a comparison between groups does exist, it does not always back the claim: in twelve Indonesian district archers the trained group gains almost nine points and the control stays put, but the difference between the groups is not significant, with six archers on each side and a journal of questionable editorial standards. The other controlled studies are small, lack a direct comparison or had groups that already differed at the start, and the rest is single-group before-and-after work, much of it from the same research setting. Two things should be said to the reader. The first is that the score does not follow the physical qualities: in a circuit on thirty children, balance, concentration and holding at draw improve by between seven and seventeen per cent while the score rises by two and a half, and in another, also on children, the score keeps rising after fitness has already levelled off. The second is that shooting on its own also raises the score: in an experiment on traditional archers, eight weeks of ordinary practice raised it in all twelve archers of the control group. That is why studies without a control inflate the gains, and why the claim stays reported.claim:preparazione-fisica-precisione:revision:2026-09-23:3Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/physical-conditioning-accuracy#storiaA cross-sectional study of twenty under-13 archers sets five fitness tests beside accuracy, and none is related to the score: together they explain almost none of it. It is not a training programme, so it does not test the claim, but it is a reminder that in children current fitness does not separate those who shoot better. The status stays reported.claim:preparazione-fisica-precisione:history_entry:2026-09-21:2025Mon, 21 Sep 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/physical-conditioning-accuracy#storiaThe strongest comparison so far arrives: in sixty Indian national-level archers, twelve weeks of gym strength work are worth 36.5 points more than the control over seventy-two arrows, with an adjusted comparison between the groups, and the control does not change. In the same year two single-group circuits raise the score slightly, six points at 30 metres and twenty-two over thirty-six arrows, and in one of them the physical gains are far larger than the gain in score. In that circuit, moreover, arrows were shot at every station, so there too the gain in score does not separate from the extra arrows. A third circuit, of planks on twelve secondary-school archers, claims huge gains, but its means cannot be read. The direction is unanimous, but the controls remain few and small, in the strongest comparison the groups are not randomised and each trained at a different academy, and much of the work comes from the same setting: it stays reported.claim:preparazione-fisica-precisione:history_entry:2026-09-21:2023Mon, 21 Sep 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/physical-conditioning-accuracy#storiaThe first study with a comparison group that the registry can count arrives: six weeks of upper-limb plyometrics and accuracy rises, while in the control group it does not move by a tenth. That is enough to move to reported and no further, because the report is weak: the two groups already differed in age and accuracy at the start, and in the control group a value declared significant corresponds to identical means.claim:preparazione-fisica-precisione:history_entry:2026-09-21:2018Mon, 21 Sep 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/physical-conditioning-accuracy#storiaThe first strength programme on archers with a control group arrives: twelve weeks of general work with grip exercises take the score of fifteen young archers from 68.1 to 89.7 over twelve arrows at 18 metres, while the control group stays put. The two groups are never compared with each other, though, and the journal has questionable editorial standards: under the registry's rules a venue of that kind never settles a status, and the question stays not studied.claim:preparazione-fisica-precisione:history_entry:2026-09-21:2017Mon, 21 Sep 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/physical-conditioning-accuracyclaim:preparazione-fisica-precisione:new_claim:2026-08-26:riportatoWed, 26 Aug 2026 08:00:00 GMT