Fixed or changing distance in archery: Yachsie 2024

Twenty male archers aged 15 to 20 from the same Indonesian club (Taurus Archery, Banyumas) were split into two groups of 10 and trained for six weeks, 18 sessions, in two different ways: one group always shot at 30 metres, the other alternated between 10, 20 and 30 metres. Before and after, everyone shot a 36-arrow test with a maximum of 360 points.

The fixed-distance group went from a mean of 278.9 to 303.6 points (24.7 more), the variable-distance group from 272.4 to 286.9 (14.5 more). All 20 improved, by between 13 and 33 points, and the t-tests show significant differences both within each group and between the two (p = 0.000 in all three cases).

The authors conclude that both forms of practice improve accuracy and that the fixed distance works better. On their recommendations, though, the abstract and the conclusion contradict each other: the first suggests the fixed distance for beginners and teenagers and the variable one for adults, the second the fixed distance for experienced athletes and the variable one for beginners.

The archers, all club members, were ranked by their baseline test score and allocated to the groups in an A-B-B-A pattern (ordinal pairing), without randomisation. Training was progressive, at an intensity given as 65%. The text speaks of 72 arrows, without saying whether per session, at 30 metres for one group and at 10, 20 and 30 metres for the other, in ends of 6 arrows; the programme table instead lists 12 ends and 12 sessions of 6 arrows, with 45 minutes' recovery, and the two descriptions do not match. The paper does not say what bows were used, or how the second group divided its arrows between the three distances.

The accuracy test consists of 36 arrows, scored from 5 to 10 on a six-ring face; the distance is 40 metres in the abstract and in one sentence of the methods, and 30 metres in the next. For the test the authors cite, from their own earlier work, a content validity of 0.935 and a Cronbach's alpha of 0.825. The analysis uses a paired t-test within each group and an independent-samples t-test between groups, run in SPSS.

The main limitation is the relationship between training and test. If the test was at 30 metres, the fixed-distance group spent six weeks practising at exactly the distance it was measured at, while the other group spent only part of its time there: the first group gaining more is what one would expect, and it does not show that practice at a constant distance teaches more. If the test was at 40 metres, neither group ever trained at that distance, and the paper does not discuss it. There is also no group that carried on training as before, so the effect of the drills cannot be separated from six extra weeks of practice, familiarity with the test and the time of year.

Ordinal A-B-B-A pairing should produce groups that start almost level, but the scores in the table do not follow the pattern (the best baseline score, 290, is in the variable group and the next three are in the fixed group), and the fixed group starts 6.5 points higher. The text calls the gains "percentages" (24.7% and 14.5%) when they are points, mentions a between-group difference of 16,700 that cannot be derived from the data, and opens the results by describing a free-weight and machine programme that has nothing to do with this study. No t values or effect sizes are reported, and the sample consists only of young men from a single club.

The study compares two ways of organising practice that every archer knows: staying at one distance or changing it during the session. Taken at face value, the result says that over six weeks those who always trained at 30 metres gained more points than those who alternated three distances, in a test that may well have been shot at 30 metres (the paper gives both 30 and 40 metres). For anyone who shoots, this fits a simple idea, that you improve at the distance you practise; it does not show that a fixed distance is the best way to train in general.

It says nothing about what happens when the distance changes in competition, as in multi-distance rounds, or about transfer to a distance that was not practised. The closing advice on beginners and experienced archers contradicts itself between the abstract and the conclusion, so it cannot be used.