Relaxation and focus in archers: Verawati 2020

Twelve archers from the club of the State University of Medan (UNIMED), Indonesia, were split into two groups of six, matched on concentration level. One group did about 10 minutes of progressive muscle relaxation at the end of each training session, the other did nothing. Concentration was measured before and after with the concentration grid, a sheet showing the numbers 00 to 99 in random order, to be found in sequence for two minutes.

In the relaxation group the mean score rose from 16 to 21.67, an average gain of 5.5; in the control group from 16 to 16.33, a gain of 0.67. At the start the groups did not differ (p 0.414). The improvement within the relaxation group is significant (p 0.027), the control group's is not (p 0.157), and after the programme the two groups differ (p 0.027). The authors work out an advantage of 4.83 points for the relaxation group and conclude that progressive muscle relaxation increases archers' concentration.

The design has an experimental and a control group, measured before and after. Archers already in the top band of the grid were excluded, to leave room for improvement. The score is the highest number reached in two minutes minus errors. The grid's validity was judged by a single sport psychologist; reliability is given as a correlation of 0.978, without saying between which measurements. The analysis uses the Wilcoxon test.

The relaxation took place after physical and technical training, ahead of a selection event. The description also includes seeking a state of calm alertness and suggestions about concentration, so something more than muscle relaxation alone. The number of sessions, the overall length of the programme and the archers' age, sex, experience and bow type are not reported.

Six archers per group is very few, and without knowing how many sessions there were it is impossible to tell what dose produced the result. The control group did nothing in place of relaxation, so the attention received also plays a part, and the paper does not say whether the person measuring knew the groups. The two groups are compared with each other using the Wilcoxon test, which is meant for paired measurements on the same people, not for separate groups.

There are inconsistencies too: the club population is given as 10 athletes, yet the sample is 12; the control group's starting mean, recalculated from the table, is 15.67, not 16. Above all, the grid measures visual search for numbers on a sheet of paper, not concentration on the shot, and the study records no competition or training scores.

The study shows that six archers who did ten minutes of relaxation after training improved on a paper number-search task, and six who did not, did not. It says nothing about shooting: nobody measured scores, groups or shot timing. For anyone already using relaxation it is no reason to stop, since no negative effect emerges; for anyone who does not, it is no evidence that relaxation helps them shoot better.