In wheelchair archers the shoulder shows frequent changes in both arms

1 study · 35 archers measured

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.

There is a single study, small and described as a pilot: in 2016 a group of Korean rehabilitation physicians examined both shoulders of 16 paraplegic wheelchair archers and 19 table tennis players by ultrasound, all of them in regular training at two centres for disabled athletes. The archers are 45 on average, with twelve years in the sport and almost twenty-four in a wheelchair, and they train 27 hours a week. Tendon changes are frequent on both sides, 2.29 per shoulder in the bow arm and 2.35 in the string arm, with no difference between the two; what changes is their distribution. In the string arm the most common is tendinopathy of the long head of the biceps, 35 per cent of the changes found, and the pattern differs from that of the free arm in the table tennis players; in the bow arm subscapularis and supraspinatus predominate, at 27 per cent each. So something that may depend on shooting does show, but shoulder pain in daily life is the same as in the table tennis players, 54.7 against 44.4 points out of 150 with no significant difference, and the type of disability does not change the picture. There is no group of standing archers and none of wheelchair users who do not shoot: today it is impossible to tell how much comes from shooting and how much from more than twenty years of pushing a wheelchair and transferring, which load the same shoulders. The study also excluded anyone who had had surgery on the upper limb or had seen a doctor for shoulder pain in the previous six months, so the most serious cases are left out of the count. And a change on ultrasound is not necessarily a problem.

Also phrased as: "the shoulder in para archery"; "paraplegic archers"; "biceps tendinopathy in archers"; "wheelchair use and shoulder pain"; "shoulder ultrasound in archers"

In practice

In para archery it is said that a wheelchair archer's shoulder works twice, once to push the chair and once to shoot, and needs more protection than a standing archer's.

Evidence

2016
For Archers Published later

16 paraplegic wheelchair archers (AR2 class) from two Korean training centres for disabled athletes, both shoulders scanned by ultrasound: on average 2.29 changes per shoulder in the bow arm and 2.35 in the string arm, 37 and 40 changes in all.

Shoulder Disease Patterns of the Wheelchair Athletes of Table-Tennis and Archery: A Pilot Study · Byung-chun You, Won-Jae Lee, Seung-Hwa Lee, Sol Jang, Hyun-seok Lee
2016
For Archers Published later

In the string arm the most common is tendinopathy of the long head of the biceps, 35.0 per cent of the 40 changes, followed by supraspinatus (25.0) and subscapularis (22.5).

Shoulder Disease Patterns of the Wheelchair Athletes of Table-Tennis and Archery: A Pilot Study · Byung-chun You, Won-Jae Lee, Seung-Hwa Lee, Sol Jang, Hyun-seok Lee
2016
For Archers Published later

In the bow arm subscapularis and supraspinatus tendinopathies predominate, at 27.0 per cent each of the 37 changes, followed by biceps (18.9), infraspinatus (16.2) and bursitis (10.8). The percentages describe how the changes found are distributed, not how many archers have one.

Shoulder Disease Patterns of the Wheelchair Athletes of Table-Tennis and Archery: A Pilot Study · Byung-chun You, Won-Jae Lee, Seung-Hwa Lee, Sol Jang, Hyun-seok Lee
2016
Context Archers Published later

The number of changes does not differ between bow arm and string arm, 2.29 against 2.35 per shoulder, a difference that is not significant.

Shoulder Disease Patterns of the Wheelchair Athletes of Table-Tennis and Archery: A Pilot Study · Byung-chun You, Won-Jae Lee, Seung-Hwa Lee, Sol Jang, Hyun-seok Lee
2016
Context Archers Published later

In the string arm tendinopathy of the long head of the biceps is more frequent than in the non-dominant arm of the 19 wheelchair table tennis players (chi-square, p < 0.05), and subscapularis and supraspinatus tendinopathies make up less of the total: 54.0 per cent in the bow arm and 47.5 in the string arm, against 68.0 in the dominant and 86.4 in the non-dominant arm of the table tennis players.

Shoulder Disease Patterns of the Wheelchair Athletes of Table-Tennis and Archery: A Pilot Study · Byung-chun You, Won-Jae Lee, Seung-Hwa Lee, Sol Jang, Hyun-seok Lee
2016
Context Archers Published later

Shoulder pain in daily life, on the WUSPI scale, does not differ between wheelchair archers and table tennis players: 54.69 ± 25.00 against 44.42 ± 22.44 out of 150 (p = 0.209), with 27.19 against 22.42 hours of training a week (p = 0.154).

Shoulder Disease Patterns of the Wheelchair Athletes of Table-Tennis and Archery: A Pilot Study · Byung-chun You, Won-Jae Lee, Seung-Hwa Lee, Sol Jang, Hyun-seok Lee
2016
Context Archers Published later

The archers are 45.6 ± 12.0 years old, with 12.0 years in the sport and 23.8 years of wheelchair use, and train 27.2 ± 9.5 hours a week: the load of the wheelchair on the same shoulders goes back further than that of shooting.

Shoulder Disease Patterns of the Wheelchair Athletes of Table-Tennis and Archery: A Pilot Study · Byung-chun You, Won-Jae Lee, Seung-Hwa Lee, Sol Jang, Hyun-seok Lee
2016
Context Archers Published later

Taking archers and table tennis players together, the type of disability does not change the picture: between spinal cord injury (31) and amputation (3), supraspinatus 34.3 against 37.5 per cent and subscapularis 31.4 against 31.3, with no significant differences.

Shoulder Disease Patterns of the Wheelchair Athletes of Table-Tennis and Archery: A Pilot Study · Byung-chun You, Won-Jae Lee, Seung-Hwa Lee, Sol Jang, Hyun-seok Lee

Status history

1990 Not studied The registry's bibliography holds no study of the shoulder in wheelchair archers. Studies of the shoulder in archery concern standing archers, and nobody has looked at what happens when the same shoulders also push a wheelchair: not studied.
2016 Reported A single study, of 16 paraplegic wheelchair archers examined by ultrasound alongside 19 table tennis players: tendon changes in the shoulder are frequent on both sides, 2.29 per shoulder in the bow arm and 2.35 in the string arm, with tendinopathy of the long head of the biceps leading in the string arm and those of subscapularis and supraspinatus in the bow arm. The string-arm pattern differs from the table tennis players', but daily pain does not, and the type of disability does not change the picture: the study cannot separate the load of shooting from that of the wheelchair. A small sample, with no standing archers to compare against: reported.

Research lines

Cite

APA

Campagna, M. (2026). In wheelchair archers the shoulder shows frequent changes in both arms (Version 2). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/health/wheelchair-archers-shoulder

BibTeX

@misc{campagna2026_spallaarciericarrozzina,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {In wheelchair archers the shoulder shows frequent changes in both arms},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/health/wheelchair-archers-shoulder},
  note = {Version 2; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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