https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back 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/drawing-with-the-backThe evidence on archers points almost entirely the same way, but it is thinner than the advice suggests. The most direct figure is a correlation across 23 people, elite archers, beginners and non-archers: the higher the FITA score, the lower the activity of the drawing hand's forearm muscles around the release, with indices up to r = 0.74. At the other end, in 30 Japanese archers across three levels, over the second before the clicker the lower trapezius works at 54.0% of maximal contraction in the elite against 39.4% in the pre-elite and 34.0% in the beginners, and the ratio between upper and lower trapezius falls from 2.33 to 1.23 as level rises; biceps and triceps, in the same sample, work less in the experts. A similar picture appears in 27 Turkish archers, though there it is the posterior deltoid and middle trapezius that separate the levels, and the lower trapezius works harder in the less experienced. Two warnings count as much as the result. First, the load never moves across entirely: in 5 elite Russian archers the finger flexor of the drawing hand works far harder than its counterpart on the other arm, with an asymmetry coefficient of 0.86 on a scale where zero means parity and one means only one side working. Second, nobody has compared groups taught to draw with the back against groups taught otherwise, and in the 24 compound archers measured, shoulder-girdle activation does not separate the levels, most likely because the mechanical release holds the load at full draw.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:revision:2026-09-12:4Sat, 12 Sep 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back#storia30 Japanese archers across three levels supply the figures that were missing: over the second before the clicker the lower trapezius works at 54.0% in the elite against 34.0% in the beginners, and the ratio between upper and lower trapezius falls from 2.33 to 1.23 as level rises. The status does not rise because it is still a comparison between different groups measured once, and in the same sample the upper trapezius and the deltoids do not separate the levels.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:history_entry:2026-08-15:2018Sat, 15 Aug 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back#storiaA comparison of just two compound archers, one trained and one occasional, with forces estimated from electromyography, gives the trained archer more deltoid and less middle trapezius. One case each and a mechanical release: it stays context, and the status stays reported.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:history_entry:2026-08-15:2017Sat, 15 Aug 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back#storiaIn the comparison between elite and intermediate archers, the elite use the middle trapezius of the drawing arm more and the finger flexors less, which is the exact shape of the claim. It is a single cross-sectional sample, from the same laboratory as the year before, and the registry links it to that study because it reuses its elite archers: it counts once and the status does not change.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:history_entry:2026-06-15:2026Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back#storiaAn asymmetry measurement on five elite recurve archers, with forty-eight electromyography channels synchronised to the clicker, shows two things at once: the forearm muscles of the drawing hand work far harder than those of the bow hand, with an asymmetry coefficient of 0.86 on the finger flexor, so the forearm does not rest at all; and the serratus anterior on the bow side gains more and more over its counterpart, with a coefficient that reaches minus 0.83 by the release, in order to hold the scapula against the push of the bow. In the same year, in eight French elite archers, the percentages of maximal contraction say where the load goes: middle deltoid of the bow arm between 46.5 and 65.5, middle trapezius on the string side between 41.4 and 44.7 after release, finger flexors between 3.9 and 6.3 and trunk muscles around five. All descriptive and on minimal samples, but the shape of the claim sharpens: the back carries the load, it does not replace it.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:history_entry:2026-06-15:2025Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back#storiaA review reports a sample of medal-winning archers in which better control of bow and posture goes with higher, not lower, activity of the finger extensor: the opposite direction from the Turkish result of 2005. It comes second hand and without figures, so it stays context and the status holds.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:history_entry:2026-06-15:2023Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back#storiaA systematic review gathers three strands all pointing the same way: beginners draw with the biceps, intermediate archers and beginners lean on the lower trapezius by depressing the scapula, and the higher the FITA score the less the forearm works. In the same year a twelve-week lower-trapezius programme in fourteen university archers lowers the activity of the upper trapezius and biceps and halves the ratio between upper and lower trapezius, from 2.2 to 1.1, without any significant change in the shoulder angles; the triceps falls in the control group as well, so that part cannot be credited to the training. This is the first time the load shifts after training rather than only between groups of different level, but the group is small and score is not the outcome.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:history_entry:2026-06-15:2022Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back#storiaThe analysis of muscle synergies in twenty-eight recurve archers adds the how, not only the how much: the shot is organised into three groups of muscles, one per phase, and in beginners the middle deltoid weighs less in the aiming synergy, while in the elite the finger flexors weigh less in the release synergy. Two details consistent with the claim, read on synergy weights rather than activation levels, so the status does not move.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:history_entry:2026-06-15:2021Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back#storiaAn intervention on thirty-one elite archers shows that the ratio can be shifted: eight weeks of lower-trapezius strengthening take it from 3.47 to 1.43 and reduce scapular elevation from 81.5 to 78.9 degrees. The same study also shows that before the intervention the ratio varies enormously from athlete to athlete, 3.47 with a standard deviation of 3.50. Estimates on one traditional archer, in a venue with doubtful editorial standards and with forces derived from cadaver muscle cross-sections, place the arm and trunk above the forearm on the drawing side. Neither measures score, so the status stays.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:history_entry:2026-06-15:2020Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back#storiaAcross twenty-seven recurve archers of three levels, the elite hold the draw with the posterior deltoid and the middle trapezius, while the less experienced load the lower trapezius more. A single case measured with electromyography shows the deltoid of the drawing arm more active than the finger flexor, with the flexor at its peak at full load and while aiming and dropping sharply at release. The comparison is cross-sectional and the single case comes from a regional journal, so the status stays.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:history_entry:2026-06-15:2014Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back#storiaThe first figure linking the back to the target is tiny: in one of the three Malaysian national-team archers measured arrow by arrow, more activity of the trapezius on the drawing side goes with higher scores, with a correlation of 0.46 over twenty-nine arrows. A single archer, so the status stays where it is.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:history_entry:2026-06-15:2012Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back#storiaA clue about the mechanism arrives, not about score: in ten beginners, more activity of the scapular muscles goes with less tremor of the humerus, with correlations between minus 0.22 and minus 0.57 at partial draw. The link is weak, explaining at most a third of the variation, and the sign partly reverses at full draw at one hundred and ten degrees of elevation. The status does not change.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:history_entry:2026-06-15:2010Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back#storiaA qualification worth keeping: in ten club archers measured while aiming, the muscle with the highest integrated value is not the trapezius but the deltoid on the bow side, 987 microvolts per second, the highest of the six sites. The work sits in the shoulder complex as a whole rather than in one muscle, and nobody has yet compared groups taught to draw with the back against groups who are not.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:history_entry:2026-06-15:1993Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back#storiaEight experienced archers with competition background, nine shots per distance from eighteen to ninety metres: the trapezius is the first muscle to contract in both arms, in every participant and at every distance. It is the shoulder that starts the draw, and this time the finding is systematic, though it remains a description of the order of activation with no link to score.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:history_entry:2026-06-15:1990Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back#storiaA comparison of four experts with six complete beginners adds the moment of release: the middle trapezius on the drawing side increases its discharge in the experts and falls silent in the beginners. These are traces without figures, on ten people: the direction is confirmed and the status stays.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:history_entry:2026-06-15:1976Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-back#storiaThe earliest electromyography in the archive is on three kyudo practitioners, with fourteen muscles recorded: during the opening the discharge of the teres major on both sides, of the deltoid and of the triceps grows, that is the shoulder and back of both arms. In the same trace, though, the biceps works hard throughout the opening and in the drawing arm it rises further during the hold. Evidence on archers, since kyudo counts, but on three people and with one element pulling the other way.claim:trazione-con-la-schiena:history_entry:2026-06-15:1971Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/drawing-with-the-backclaim:trazione-con-la-schiena:new_claim:2026-04-13:riportatoMon, 13 Apr 2026 08:00:00 GMT