Young archers' shoulders: Dinihari 2025 study

Twenty-two archers from a club in Bali, aged between 14 and 18, with at least a year of practice, drawn by lot into two groups of eleven. The control group receives only kinesiology tape on the bow arm; the intervention group receives the same tape plus twenty minutes of shoulder exercises with the Flexi-bar, an elastic rod of one hundred and fifty-two centimetres with weights at both ends which, when shaken, produces a vibration at five hertz, three times a week for four weeks.

Two things are measured: shoulder joint position sense in flexion and in abduction, as the distance in millimetres between the point the arm is passively brought to and the one the archer reproduces unaided, hence an error in which a lower number is better; and accuracy, with three arrows at eighteen metres with a barebow, for a maximum of thirty points.

Within each group, before and after, everything improves: joint position sense in flexion and in abduction and accuracy, in both groups, with accuracy at p equal to 0.03 in each.

Between the groups, after the intervention, accuracy does not differ: 26.36 ± 1.36 in the tape-only group against 25.45 ± 1.57 in the Flexi-bar group, a difference of 0.91 points, p equal to 0.163. On joint position sense in flexion there is no difference, p equal to 0.151. On abduction there is a difference, at p equal to 0.00, and the values are 66.64 millimetres of error in the tape-only group against 80.91 in the Flexi-bar group: since the lower error is the better one, that difference favours the tape on its own.

The abstract, however, lists abduction among the comparisons without a significant difference, writing of no significant differences in proprioceptive abilities in flexion (p=0.151) and abduction (p=0.00). The article's conclusion is that the combination improves proprioception and accuracy but produces no different effect from the tape alone, and where the difference does exist it never states its direction.

The article calls itself quasi-experimental research with a before-and-after design and a control group, and on the same page describes a draw: after written consent, "randomisation was then conducted" to allocate participants to the control and the intervention group. The two descriptions do not match, and the registry keeps the design as controlled with random allocation because the draw is described.

Inclusion criteria: age between 14 and 18, a normal body mass index by the standards of the Indonesian health ministry, at least a year of practice, consent, a joint position error greater than 89 millimetres and a shooting score no higher than 25 out of 30. Excluded were those with upper limb disorders or taking part in other training programmes; withdrawal below 85 per cent attendance.

Joint position sense was measured by passively bringing the arm to a reference position and then asking the archer to reproduce it actively, in flexion and in abduction, measuring the distance in millimetres between the target point and the reproduced one.

Accuracy was measured with a barebow at eighteen metres on a scoring board, with three arrows per trial and scoring under competition rules, a maximum of thirty points.

The tape was applied with stabilisation techniques on the deltoid and the scapulohumeral structures, with Y-strips and I-strips at a tension of 70 to 100 per cent, using anatomical landmarks, and only on the bow arm. The Flexi-bar exercises occupied four movement positions for twenty minutes, followed by five minutes of stretching, and began twenty minutes after the tape was applied.

Weight with an analogue scale and height with a stature metre, body mass index computed and classified by Indonesian standards, with a normal range between 18.5 and 22.9.

For within-group comparisons the Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used for some variables and the paired samples t test for others, with the test named beside each value; for between-group comparisons an independent samples t test on the final values. In the extracted text of the results only the post-intervention columns appear: if the printed page also carries the baseline values per group, the extraction has lost them, and in that case the data needed to check that the two groups started level are outside this card.

Received on 29 September 2025, revised on 11 October, accepted on 28 November. A regional venue.

One sentence of the abstract contradicts itself. It says there are no significant differences between the groups in joint position sense in flexion, at p equal to 0.151, and in abduction, at p equal to 0.00. A p of 0.00 is a significant difference, not its absence: the number and its negation sit in the same line. In the body of the article the difference on abduction is acknowledged, and then set aside because the one on flexion is missing.

That difference, though, has a direction the article never states, and it runs the opposite way to what a reader expects. Joint position sense is measured as the distance in millimetres between the target position and the reproduced one, that is as an error, where the lower number is the better one. After four weeks the tape-only group has 66.64 millimetres of error in abduction and the Flexi-bar group 80.91: the significant difference therefore favours the tape on its own. The same order recurs on flexion, 69.94 against 76.45, where it does not reach the threshold, and on the score, 26.36 against 25.45, also below it. On all three measures the group that did an extra twenty minutes of exercises finishes behind, and on one of the three the difference is statistically detectable.

The two groups are compared on their final values with an independent samples t test, discarding the before in a design that has a before. Had the groups started out different, that difference would end up inside the result with nobody seeing it. In the extracted text the baseline values per group do not appear, so this card cannot verify that they started level: that is the point to check on the printed page.

Both groups received the tape, so the study has no group without tape and can say nothing about the tape. Tables 1 and 2, however, are titled before and after kinesiotaping, and the text concludes that kinesiotaping effectively improves shooting accuracy. That conclusion comes from a before-and-after comparison within a single group: over four weeks of training those youngsters would have improved anyway, as is shown by the fact that the other group improved too.

There is then a structural reason why both groups had to improve, and it lies in the admission criteria. Entering the study required a position error above 89 millimetres and a score no higher than 25 out of 30: those selected, in other words, were precisely the archers who stood worst on those two measures. A group chosen on the worse tail of a measure, measured again, improves by the way repeated measurements behave, with no intervention required. Both of this study's before-and-after comparisons are therefore built into the design, and the only one carrying information is the one between the groups.

The accuracy measure is too narrow for the weight placed on it: three arrows, a maximum of thirty points, and standard deviations of 1.36 and 1.57 points. Three arrows at eighteen metres do not tell an improved archer from a lucky end, and with the top cut off at admission at 25 the room for variation is smaller still.

Minor things remain that a reader notices. The shooting score carries p equal to 0.03 in both groups, identically. The within-group tests alternate between Wilcoxon and paired t across variables of the same kind, with no reason given for each. The headings of Tables 3 and 4 are in Indonesian while the rest is in English. And the corresponding author's name is written Komang Embun Dini Hari in the article and Embun Dinihari in the bibliographic record.

On reach: twenty-two adolescents aged 14 to 18 from a single club, eleven per group, with an imbalanced distribution between the sexes that the authors themselves list among their limits given that sex influences proprioception and accuracy, four weeks of intervention and no follow-up. The shooting is with a barebow at eighteen metres, so none of this transfers without further evidence to recurve or compound at competition distances.

The question this study answers is narrow but concrete: does adding twenty minutes of shoulder exercises with a vibrating rod, three times a week for four weeks, do more than kinesiology tape alone? The answer from their numbers is no. On the score the two groups end up level, at p equal to 0.163. On shoulder joint position sense the group doing the exercises ends up with a larger error, and in abduction the difference reaches the threshold: in favour of the tape on its own.

This is not evidence that those exercises do harm. With eleven people per group, four weeks and three arrows as the accuracy measure, this study has no sensitivity to establish anything small in either direction. What it leaves is that the combination did not show the advantage its authors expected, and that where a difference did emerge it ran the other way.

On kinesiology tape, by contrast, there is nothing to learn here, although the article concludes that it improves accuracy. All twenty-two received the tape: without a group not wearing it, the before-and-after improvement is that of four weeks of training, not that of the tape.

And there is a detail of the design that serves as a general lesson for reading this literature. Entering the study required a high proprioception error and a low score. Choosing those who stand worst on a measure and then measuring them again produces an improvement on its own: it is why both groups improve in this study, and it is why a before-and-after comparison without a group to compare against says almost nothing.

The registry keeps this work as a comparison between two active interventions on twenty-two adolescents with a barebow at eighteen metres, with a null result on the score and a difference in abduction proprioception favouring the group without the exercises, and notes that the abstract lists that difference among the non-significant results.