Feet position in archery: Pukhov 2023 study

Eleven Russian archers aged 17 to 18, six compound and five recurve, ranked between Candidate Master of Sport and Master of Sport, shot 6 arrows in each of five foot positions while standing on two stabilometric platforms, one under each foot: their usual stance, a "45 degrees" stance, a parallel stance, a V stance and a T stance.

In their usual stance the feet were open in a V. Among the compound archers the left foot, the one nearer the target, made a mean angle of -25.16 degrees with the shooting line and the right foot 5.78; among the recurve archers the figures were -22.75 and 16.10 degrees. Weight was shifted onto the front foot, by 7.83% in compound and 29.50% in recurve, and slightly more so in the V stance (13.84% and 30.68%). The other stances did little to the weight distribution, except the T stance, with the left foot perpendicular to the shooting line: there the load moved onto the rear foot (58.15% in compound and 46.77% in recurve) and the balance quality index, which in the usual stance was 69.90% in compound and 40.27% in recurve, fell by 38.56% and 64.83% respectively. In the other stances balance worsened only slightly, with no significant differences.

The score did not drop noticeably in any stance and, according to the author, was if anything slightly higher than in the usual one. Activity in the eight muscles recorded changed on average by 1 to 27% in compound and by 3 to 36% in recurve, with no significant differences.

The author is based at the state sports academy in Velikie Luki, Russia. The archers held the bow in the left hand and drew with the right. The five stances were: the usual one; "45 degrees", with the left foot at 45 degrees to the shooting line and the right foot parallel to it; parallel, with the left foot in its usual position and the right foot lined up with it; V, with both feet at 20 to 30 degrees from the shooting line; and T, with the left foot perpendicular to the shooting line and the right foot parallel.

The Stabilan-01-2 stabilometer recorded the load and centre of pressure movement under each foot over the 2 seconds before release, in the final phase of the draw. From these the author calculated load asymmetry, a balance quality index, the area of the confidence ellipse, and the length and speed of the path. Telemetric EMG at 2 kHz recorded eight muscles over the same 2 seconds: flexor digitorum superficialis and extensor digitorum of the right hand, right posterior and left anterior deltoid, and the upper and lower trapezius on both sides. Data are given as means with standard errors and compared with a repeated-measures analysis of variance.

Six arrows per stance are far too few to detect a difference in score, and the scores appear only in a chart, with no values or tests; the paper does not say what distance or target face was used, or in what order the stances were tried. With five and six archers per bow type, the absence of significant differences in muscle activity says little: mean changes of up to 36% are not small, they simply cannot be told apart from noise in samples this size.

There is also an internal inconsistency: the conclusion of the abstract states that changing stance did not worsen postural control, while the results, and the paper's own conclusion a few lines later, report a clear and significant drop in balance in the T stance, so the statement holds only for the other stances. Each new stance was tried for a single end of six arrows, and the paper mentions no period of adjustment: the study describes the first arrows in an unfamiliar stance, not what happens after weeks of practice. The paper is in Russian, with an English abstract.

For anyone who shoots, the most concrete point is that in young, already well-trained archers, six arrows in an unfamiliar foot position did not lower the score, and that only the T stance, with the front foot pointing at the target, clearly worsened balance by moving weight onto the rear foot. The author infers that keeping the body stable and executing the shot are separate technical elements, so that improving one would not change the other, but that is his interpretation.

The study does not say which stance is best, nor that foot position does not matter: with so few arrows a small effect on score could not have been detected. It does show that archers at this level compensate well, in the short term, for foot positions other than their usual one, with the exception of the T stance.