Matteo Campagna
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A session of manual therapy after shooting did not help the archer's shoulder recover

1 study · 20 archers measured

ForContextAgainst202420262024, for, n = 202024, context, n = 202026, for, n = 202026, context, n = 20
Each circle is a study: its position gives the year, its row whether it is for, against or context, its size how many participants it measured. Light circles are studies on other populations or without archers.

Two papers from the same Polish group, on the same twenty trained archers, have tried it, and neither saw any recovery. In the first, from 2024, after a hundred arrows and a session of shoulder manipulation the electromyography of the deltoids and trapezius does not return to its starting values, the trapezius peak stays above its resting level, 551 microvolts against 313, and in the infraspinatus activity after the therapy is even higher than straight after the arrows, 170 against 110 on average, which the authors read as fatigue carrying on. In the second, from 2026, with a myotonometer in place of the electrodes, none of the five mechanical properties measured in six muscles changes in a way that survives correction for the thirty comparisons, and the only nominal drop concerns the flexor carpi ulnaris. The limits weigh more than the result: a single group with no control, no measurement between the rest and the therapy, and recovery defined only as a laboratory number, with no measure of pain, score or how the archer felt. It cannot be said that manual therapy is useless; it can be said that, where it was looked for, the effect did not show.

Also phrased as: "massage after archery training"; "shoulder manipulation for recovery"; "physiotherapy after shooting"; "loosening the shoulder after shooting"; "manual therapy and muscle fatigue"

In practice

It is widely believed that an expert pair of hands on the shoulder, once training is over, eases the fatigue of shooting and sets the archer up better for the next session, and in many teams an end-of-day treatment is routine.

Evidence

Status history

  1. 2024 Reported The first attempt measures the electrical activity of the muscles. Twenty trained archers from a Polish club shoot a hundred arrows, then receive a session of shoulder manipulation from a physiotherapist: the electromyography of the middle and posterior deltoid and the trapezius does not return to resting values, the trapezius peak stays above its starting level, 551 microvolts against 313, and in the infraspinatus activity after the therapy rises instead of falling, 170 against 110 on average. The authors conclude that the manipulation did not bring the parameters back. It is a single group, with nobody who simply rests, so there is no way of knowing whether things would have gone the same without the therapy: reported.
  2. 2026 Reported The same group measures the same twenty archers with a myotonometer, which derives tone, stiffness, elasticity, relaxation and creep from the resting muscle: neither fifty nor a hundred arrows change anything, and after the rest and the therapy the only drop concerns the flexor carpi ulnaris, with tone going from 18.5 to 17.1 hertz, which does not survive correction for the thirty comparisons. The authors themselves call it nominal. It is a second null result, but on the same archers and with no control group, so it counts as a single study: the status stays reported.

Related

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Research lines

Studies describe groups of archers, and your own numbers show how far the finding applies to your shooting.

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Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). A session of manual therapy after shooting did not help the archer's shoulder recover (Version 1). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/health/manual-therapy-shoulder-recovery

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_terapiamanualerecupero,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {A session of manual therapy after shooting did not help the archer's shoulder recover},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/health/manual-therapy-shoulder-recovery},
  note = {Version 1; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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