Specific strength training in archers: Chatla 2023

Sixty Indian archers were split into four groups of fifteen for twelve weeks: a control group carrying on with its routine, a gym strength group, a specific strength group working with the bow and with elastic bands, and a group doing both on alternate days. The outcome measured is the score over 72 arrows, before and after the programme.

Starting scores were similar across the four groups, between 531 and 536 points. At the end the control group was at 537.27, six points higher and with no statistical difference. Specific strength went from 535.33 to 557.93, about 23 points; gym strength from 533.44 to 568.35, about 35 points; the two together from 536.13 to 591.60, about 55 points. Adjusting the final scores for the starting ones with an analysis of covariance, the adjusted means become 532.64 for the control group, 557.39 for specific strength, 569.10 for gym strength and 590.68 for the combined programme, with an F ratio of 111.51 on 3 and 55 degrees of freedom. The pairwise comparison with the Bonferroni correction finds differences between all four groups, including the one between specific strength and gym strength, which is the smallest (11.7 points).

The order, then, is clean: no training, then specific strength, then gym strength, then the two together. The authors conclude that combining strength training with shooting is necessary for the score to rise.

The participants came from archery academies in several Indian states (Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu), with a mean age of 20.5 years and a standard deviation of 3.8, men and women, recurve and compound, medallists or competitors at national level, with at least three years in their own discipline and no pathological conditions in the preceding six months. Sampling is stated to be non-random: those who agreed to take part were distributed across the four groups.

The general strength programme filled Monday, Wednesday and Friday: fifteen minutes of warm-up, forty-five of work at 50 to 70 per cent of one-repetition maximum (lower body 8-10 repetitions for 3 sets, upper body 10-12 for 3) and ten minutes for the back and abdomen, with exercises changing every four weeks. The specific programme filled Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday: thirty minutes with the bow (elastic bands, holds at half draw, at full draw and beyond full draw, and in the later weeks holds of 45 and 60 seconds with the weight shifting from one leg to the other) and twenty minutes without the bow (a static strap held at 80 per cent of draw length, single-arm holds in a side plank position of up to four minutes). The combined group alternated the two programmes, and so trained six days out of seven.

The score was collected before and after the twelve weeks, at each group's usual practice venue: 72 arrows at 70 metres on a 122 centimetre face for recurve, at 50 metres on an 80 centimetre face for compound, following the World Archery rules. The programmes were delivered by the academies' coaches and by strength specialists, trained in a week-long workshop and supervised periodically by the investigator; technical and tactical training was left unchanged. The analysis uses a paired t test within each group and an analysis of covariance with a Bonferroni test between groups.

The most serious limit is in one line of the methods: the four groups trained at four different private academies. Group and venue coincide, so coach, team-mates, field and training habits change along with the programme, and no analysis can separate the effect of the programme from that of the place where it was carried out. Add that allocation was not random and that there is no mention of any blinding, either of those delivering the training or of those scoring the arrows.

The second limit is volume. The combined group trained six days a week, the single-programme groups three: the winning programme is also the one that did twice the work, and the study cannot say whether what counts is the combination or the quantity. The control group, finally, received nothing extra, so the attention given to the experimental groups is another uncontrolled difference.

The study is named after strength but does not measure strength: the only outcome is the score, and it is not known whether the participants became stronger, by how much, or whether they followed the programme. Recurve and compound scores, with different distances and faces, were put into the same mean without saying how many archers of each discipline were in each group. The 72 arrows were shot outdoors, at the training fields, with no note on wind or conditions, on two days twelve weeks apart. The starting standard deviations differ widely between groups (14.96 in the control group against 7.04 in the strength group), a sign that the groups were not alike.

Small drafting inconsistencies remain: the statistics paragraph announces an analysis of variance while the results use an analysis of covariance, and Table 4 labels the combined group CG as well. The improvement of 55 points over 72 arrows in twelve weeks, in archers with at least three years of practice starting from around 536 points, is large compared with what is usually seen in studies on archers, and in this design it cannot be put down to strength training alone.

This is one of the few studies that tries to put strength training to the test of the only measure an archer cares about, the score, and the result goes the way coaches expect: the three groups that added strength work went up, the group that carried on as before stayed flat. The group that did both the gym and the work with the bow went up the most.

What the study does not allow anyone to say matters just as much. It does not say that the gym is worth more than specific work, because the two groups trained in different places with different coaches and the difference between them is the smallest of the four. It does not say that the combination beats the sum of the parts, because the combined group trained six days instead of three. And it does not say what an Italian archer adding such a programme might expect, because the 55 points come from a setting in which group and academy coincide.

To read the numbers in proportion, the starting point counts: 536 points over 72 arrows is about 7.4 per arrow, a level at which there is plenty of room to gain and at which many things, not only strength, can move the score. The specific work described is worth knowing about all the same, because it is reported in detail: holds at half draw, at full draw and beyond, a static strap at 80 per cent of draw length, single-arm holds. The registry keeps this study as evidence on archers, with a controlled but non-randomised design and a comparison between groups training at different venues, that is, as evidence in favour of adding strength, not as a ranking of the three ways of doing it.