Over the first weeks of practice less information flows from the cortex to the shooting muscles
1 study · 26 archers measured
The summary today
A single study says so, on 26 first-year university students taking their first archery course, shooting recurve at 10 metres over seven weekly lessons of a hundred minutes. With a 32-channel EEG and electromyography on six muscles, the authors measure how much information flows from the cortex to the muscles during the shot: the signal belongs to the movement rather than to background noise, since 129 of the 180 channel-muscle pairs remain significant after correction for multiple comparisons, and it arrives with a delay of about 25 milliseconds. After the course the flow from the cortex to the muscles is lower than before, while the return flow from the muscles to the brain does not change and the spread across frequency bands stays the same. The authors report the drop as significant in the prefrontal and central regions, but their table of effect sizes shows differences of the same size in regions the text describes as unchanged, so which areas really change remains uncertain. The link with score is weak, with every coefficient below 0.37, and it changes sign between before and after. It is a before-and-after design with no control group, on beginners and with an exploratory measure: it says that less information reaches the muscles in the first weeks, not that the brain drives the movement less directly, nor why this happens, nor whether it carries on over the years.
Also phrased as: "the shot becomes automatic with practice"; "corticomuscular coupling in archery"; "the brain lets go of the movement"; "automatisation of the shot in beginners"
In practice
People say that with practice the shot becomes automatic, and that at some point the head stops steering every muscle.
Evidence
-
2025
For Archers Published later
26 first-year university students (19 men and 7 women, 18.7 ± 0.5 years) on their first archery course, recurve at 10 m, seven weeks with one session of at least 100 minutes, 30 arrows per test; transfer entropy between a 32-channel EEG and electromyography on six muscles. After the course the flow from cortex to muscles is significantly lower in the prefrontal and central regions (p < 0.05; Cohen's d up to 0.62 at Fpz and 0.67 at C4, table 3), while in the other regions the authors find no differences, although the same table gives similar or larger effects in regions described as not significant (0.74 at P4 and CP6, 0.70 at P7) and the return flow from muscles to brain changes in no region (p > 0.05). Nor does the spread of the flow across the alpha, beta and gamma bands change between before and after (p > 0.05), so the authors average the two tests.
Corticomuscular Coupling Analysis in Archery Based on Transfer Entropy · Yunrui Zhang, Yue Leng, Xiaozhi Li, Wenjing Zhang, Hairong Yu
-
2025
Context Archers Published later
The measure belongs to the movement: comparing the shot window (electromyographic peak ± 1.5 s) with a resting window, 129 of the 180 channel-muscle pairs (71.7%) remain significant after correction for multiple comparisons (q < 0.05). The flow from cortex to muscles peaks at a delay of 25 ms, the alpha and beta bands dominate (|d| = 0.91 alpha against beta, 3.26 alpha against gamma, 2.74 beta against gamma), and it comes mainly from the frontal region, with a gap from the other regions that is wider before the course than after; the motor cortex shows no higher values than the rest.
Corticomuscular Coupling Analysis in Archery Based on Transfer Entropy · Yunrui Zhang, Yue Leng, Xiaozhi Li, Wenjing Zhang, Hairong Yu
-
2025
Context Archers Published later
The link with the result is weak. The strength of the flow separates arrows off the target, arrows scoring 6-8 and arrows scoring 9-10 (p < 0.05; d = 0.56 and 0.51 before the course, 0.20 and 0.47 after), but the correlations with score involve few muscles, all stay within |0.37| and change sign: positive before the course (right deltoid 0.23, right finger extensor 0.19), negative after (left spinal erectors -0.36, left deltoid -0.29). Within the session every index falls as arrows accumulate, the flow from brain to muscles faster than the return flow, and after the course the fall is more moderate.
Corticomuscular Coupling Analysis in Archery Based on Transfer Entropy · Yunrui Zhang, Yue Leng, Xiaozhi Li, Wenjing Zhang, Hairong Yu
Status history
- 2025 Reported The first study to measure the flow of information between brain and muscles during the shot: in 26 university beginners, after seven weeks of lessons, the flow from the cortex to the muscles is lower than before, with the prefrontal and central regions reported as significant by a table that does not set them clearly apart from the others, while the return flow from muscles to brain and the spread across frequency bands do not change. The signal belongs to the movement, but the link with score is weak and changes sign. A before-and-after design with no control on an exploratory measure: the evidence in favour is there and it is limited.
Related
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- EEG and neuroscience in archery: the brain of the elite archerWhat EEG studies on archers show about the best arrows, differences between levels, theta in beginners and neurofeedback, and how far each finding holds.
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Research lines
Cite
Campagna, M. (2026). Over the first weeks of practice less information flows from the cortex to the shooting muscles (Version 2). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/brain-muscle-coupling-beginners
@misc{campagna2026_accoppiamentocervellomuscolopratica,
author = {Campagna, Matteo},
title = {Over the first weeks of practice less information flows from the cortex to the shooting muscles},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/brain-muscle-coupling-beginners},
note = {Version 2; accessed 2026-10-16}
}
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