Elite versus regional archers: Jacquot 2026 thesis

The doctoral thesis gathers two studies made with the same measurement set-up. The second is the paper published in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living in 2025, which compares the good and less good arrows of eight top-level archers. The first, unpublished, is the one this record describes: it compares those eight archers with seven archers of regional level.

The elite group was four women and four men, mean age 19.1, all ranked in the top twenty of the 2024 French Olympic recurve ranking at 70 metres, with a mean best score of 654.62 out of 720 and around 21 hours of training a week. The intermediate group was three men and four women from the regional circuit, mean age 28.8, with a mean best score of 523.3 out of 720 and around 6 hours a week. During the measurements the elite archers averaged 8.87 points per arrow against 6.94 for the others.

During aiming the elite archers used less muscle almost everywhere. On the drawing side the flexor digitorum superficialis, the middle deltoid, the posterior deltoid and the upper trapezius were all less active, while the middle trapezius was more active and the extensor digitorum did not differ. On the bow side the extensor digitorum in the elite archers was less than half that of the intermediates, 10.3% against 22.7% of maximal contraction, and the flexor did not differ. All five trunk muscles measured were less active in the elite archers. The same economy returned after the release, where the elite archers showed lower activity in the forearm muscles, the middle deltoid and the whole trunk, and higher activity in the two trapezii on the drawing side.

Postural control gives a two-sided result. During aiming the elite archers swayed over a smaller surface and with shorter excursions, but at higher velocity on every axis. In the follow-through, by contrast, every centre-of-pressure measure was greater in the elite archers, surface and excursions included. The author reads the first as rapid micro-adjustments inside a narrow area and the second as active absorption of the energy after the loose.

As for the rest: during aiming the elite archers had a wider shoulder abduction (121.1 against 116.8 degrees) and a more flexed elbow (64.4 against 50.5); in the follow-through a less abducted shoulder (91.5 against 102.3) and the elbow still more flexed (56.5 against 45.4). Chest excursion during aiming was 3.4 units in the elite archers against 5.9 in the intermediates. Aiming lasted 2.62 seconds against 3.36, while clicker reaction time did not separate the two groups.

The last comparison concerns regularity, measured as each archer's standard deviation across their own arrows. The elite archers were steadier in score (0.91 against 2.02), in the external oblique on the drawing side during aiming (1.09 against 3.16) and in the follow-through (1.97 against 4.20), in centre-of-pressure surface (16.16 against 34.38), in anteroposterior excursion (2.52 against 3.99) and in shoulder angle (3.63 against 11.21). One parameter goes the other way: the peak velocity of the centre of pressure after the release varied more in the elite archers, 47.70 against 33.84.

The protocol is the one used in the second part of the thesis, with a difference in volume: here each archer shot four ends of nine arrows, 36 in all, against the eight ends of the study on the elite group. The measurements were made on an outdoor field, with the archers in a cabin with open windows and official 122 cm faces at 70 metres. After fifteen minutes of their usual warm-up, each shot with their own bow and arrows at their habitual pace, with about two minutes between ends to collect them.

Wireless surface electromyography sampled fourteen muscles at 2,000 Hz: on the drawing side the extensor digitorum, flexor digitorum superficialis, middle and posterior deltoid, middle and upper trapezius; on the bow side the flexor digitorum superficialis, extensor digitorum and middle deltoid; and five trunk muscles, the transversus abdominis, the multifidus and the external oblique on both sides. The skin was shaved, abraded and cleaned to below 5 kΩ, the electrodes were placed by a single experimenter, and each muscle was expressed as a percentage of its own maximal voluntary contraction, measured before the first end with a protocol described position by position.

A force plate recorded the centre of pressure, giving surface, excursions and velocities on both axes plus peak velocity; two inertial sensors, on the forearm and at the seventh cervical vertebra, gave shoulder abduction and elbow flexion on the drawing arm; a chest belt measured chest excursion. Two cameras at 240 frames per second served to delimit the phases and to measure, with the Kinovea software, the interval between the clicker falling and the release. Here aiming is defined from the moment the drawing arm is still until the string leaves, and the follow-through as the 0.5 seconds after the release.

Each archer's regularity was quantified as the standard deviation of every parameter across all their arrows; to compare the groups, the median of those standard deviations was then taken. The data were not normally distributed on a Shapiro-Wilk test, so all comparisons use the Mann-Whitney U test at p < 0.05: one test for the medians of the parameters and a second for the standard deviations. The study was approved by the CER STAPS ethics committee and conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Fifteen archers in all, eight on one side and seven on the other. The author puts the sample size first among the limitations, along with the fact that all the elite archers are coached by the same person, which may have produced shared habits, and that the experimental conditions reproduce neither the pressure of a competition nor the fatigue accumulated over a day of matches.

The two groups do not differ by level alone. The elite archers average 19.1 years of age and train 21 hours a week, the intermediates 28.8 years and 6 hours; they weigh on average 63.6 against 78.4 kilograms. What the study calls a difference between levels therefore carries age, build and training volume inside it, and here they cannot be separated.

One statistical point stays open. The thesis says that for each variable a first test compares the medians of the two groups, but it does not state whether the unit of analysis is the archer or the individual arrow. Almost every comparison on the parameters returns p < 0.001, a result hard to reach with eight participants against seven, while the comparisons where the unit is certainly the archer, those on the standard deviations and the scores, are far fewer. If arrows are treated as independent observations, the p values are smaller than the number of archers would justify. There is no correction for the number of comparisons: twenty-six parameters, two phases, two kinds of test.

In the text, results and discussion do not always agree. For the middle trapezius on the drawing side the results section says the elite archers activate it more, while the discussion reports 38.1% in the elite group against 41.8% in the intermediates, the opposite way round; for the upper trapezius the directions are swapped in the same way; for the middle deltoid on the bow side the results say it is more active in the intermediates while the discussion reports 56.1% in the elite group against 51.3%. In one passage on the bow arm the words "conversely" introduce two findings that point the same way. This record uses the figures from the results section and flags the discrepancies where they occur.

Finally the scope. This is a cross-sectional comparison in one session: it says how fifteen archers differed on that day, not that changing one of those parameters raises the score. Some of the conclusions the author highlights, such as held breathing or shortening the aiming time, are his suggestions for training rather than anything demonstrated here, since no intervention was tested. The thesis is doctoral work defended before a panel and has not been through journal peer review, unlike the second of its two studies.

The picture that emerges is of a more economical movement. On the same task, the eight top-level archers kept their muscles less switched on than the regional archers almost everywhere: forearm, deltoids, trunk, during aiming and after the release alike. The clearest case is the bow hand, where the extensor digitorum in the elite group sat at 10.3% of maximal contraction against 22.7% in the others, that is, a much softer grip. Less muscle does not mean less work, though: the middle trapezius on the drawing side, which draws the shoulder blade towards the spine, went the other way.

Two numbers cut against widely held ideas. Clicker reaction time did not separate the two groups, even though more than a hundred and thirty points out of 720 did: in this sample it is not that millisecond that divides regional from elite, and the author himself suggests it is a skill already acquired at intermediate level. Then the angles: the elite archers shot with a more open shoulder and a more flexed elbow than the intermediates, the opposite of what other studies on experts and beginners report, which the author himself invites readers to treat cautiously.

On sway the picture is subtler than keeping still. During aiming the elite archers stayed within a smaller area, yet their centre of pressure moved faster; after the release they swayed more on every measure. Anyone looking at a force plate, then, will not find a single number to drive down: the same measure changes sign depending on the phase.

The part on regularity speaks most directly to someone who shoots. Over the same 36 arrows, the standard deviation of the score was 0.91 in the elite group and 2.02 in the intermediates, and the same greater steadiness appeared in centre-of-pressure area, in front-to-back excursion and in shoulder angle. One detail complicates the rule, though: the peak velocity of the centre of pressure after the release varied more in the elite archers, not less. Steadiness, in this sample, does not cover everything in the same way.