Balance training improves shooting accuracy

The summary today

That a steadier stance goes with better arrows is documented in archers; whether balance training raises accuracy is disputed. The strongest result against comes from high-level archers: in thirty national-level archers, randomly assigned, six weeks of balance work alone take the score over twelve arrows from 108.5 to 111.4, against 107.6 to 106.2 in the group that adds nothing (p = 0.54). At lower levels the picture is more favourable, but more fragile. A randomised trial on twenty-two Ukrainian beginners, which adds a wobble board and a spirit level on the sight, takes the score from 252 to 340 out of 600 against 247 to 298 in the control group; another, on twenty-five beginners, finds no difference between perturbation exercises and band pulls; and in before-and-after studies of club youngsters without a control group the score always rises, in one case by sixty-six points in eighteen sessions. That balance matters more for those starting out is therefore possible, but it has not been tested: no study has compared different levels on the same programme. Even where the score rises, the link with balance is not clean: in the twelve youngsters on the Bosu, those who gained the most balance were not those who gained the most score (r = 0.18), while in thirty professional compound archers, again without a control group, the two changes go together.

Also phrased as: "Bosu training for archers"; "proprioception and archery accuracy"; "balance exercises for better shooting"; "unstable surface training and aiming"; "wobble board for archers"

Evidence

• 2016
  Context Archers Published later

  20 high-school archers from Daejeon with at least 5 years' practice, 10 doing twelve weeks of mat Pilates on top of normal training and 10 as controls: dynamic balance on the board improves in the Pilates group, with the overall score going from 38.6 to 47.5, while the control group stays put, 39.2 against 38.3. Static balance, which here is the distribution of weight between the feet, does not change in either group, and those youngsters already started at 51 against 49. No arrow was shot inside the study. Three cautions on the numbers: in the dynamic table four Z values (3.637, 4.052, 5.655 and 5.859) exceed the maximum the signed-rank test can produce on ten pairs, 2.80 without ties and 3.16 in the limiting case; across eighteen within-group comparisons five carry asterisks that do not match their own Z; and the two groups started out different in height (p = 0.012) and weight (p = 0.032), with the allocation never stated. The Pilates group did thirty-six extra hours of supervised activity and the control group nothing extra, so the comparison is between training more and training as before.

  Effects of Pilates core stability exercises on the balance abilities of archers · Jeong-Min Park, Gwang-Suk Hyun, Yong-Seok Jee

• 2018
  For Archers Published later

  22 beginner archers aged 18 to 20 from Poltava, 11 per group, two months: the experimental group additionally shoots on a balance board and with a spirit level on the sight. The score out of 600 goes from 251.6 to 340.3 (± 32.0) against 247.4 to 298.2 (± 33.4) in the control group, with t = -3.02 and p < 0.01 on the final comparison and no difference at the start. Between groups, by the end, only the total of hits and the hold with the right hand differ (t = -2.54, p < 0.05): push-ups, squats, the hold on the left and every psychophysiological index stay above 0.05. Lower-limb endurance improves significantly only in the experimental group (squats in one minute from 34.55 ± 8.95 to 46.45 ± 11.40, p < 0.05).

  Influence of application of special means of development of equilibrium and precision-target movements on the level and structure of psychophysiological indicators, physical and technical readiness of archers · V.V. Artiuh, Zh.L. Kozina, V.O. Koval, D.V. Safronov, S.V. Fomin, Yu.O. Novikov

• 2020
  Context Archers Published later

  8 recurve archers at 13 m: on the lowest-scoring arrow, centre of pressure displacement and the bow path while aiming are larger than on the best one.

  Relationship between bow stability and postural control in recurve archery · Karine Jacon Sarro, Thaynã de Castro Viana, Ricardo Machado Leite de Barros

• 2023
  For Archers Published later

  12 archers aged 14 to 17 from the Bibis Archery Club, 18 sessions of a Bosu circuit, a single group with no control: the stork test hold rises from 44.12 to 51.44 seconds (+7.32 s, t = 7.894) and the score over 36 arrows at 30 m from 216.50 to 282.83 (+66.33 points, from about 6.0 to 7.9 per arrow, t = 20.349), with all 12 archers improving on both measures and individual gains between 41 and 80 points. From the individual data in that same table, though, the balance gain and the score gain are nearly unconnected (r = 0.18): within the study that supports the claim, the score did not rise because of balance. Starting balance ranged from 27.32 to 56.20 seconds.

  Circuit training bosu ball: effect on balance and accuracy of archery athletes · Heru Prasetyo, Siswantoyo, Yudik Prasetyo, Amri Hartanto

• 2023
  Context Archers Published later

  30 archers aged 10 to 13, 18 sessions of a six-station circuit with Bosu, balance, endurance and concentration exercises and arrows shot at every station: balance and accuracy improved, but the balance effect cannot be separated from the rest. Single group.

  Circuit Game Development: Implications on Balance, Concentration, Muscle Endurance, and Arrow Accuracy · Betrix Teofa Perkasa Wibafied Billy Yachsie, Suharjana, Ali Satia Graha, Amri Hartanto

• 2023
  Against Review Published later

  A review of 126 articles, ten of them on archery: the link between postural sway and performance has been studied in few works, and the transfer of balance exercises to sport-specific performance, archery included, is not sufficiently demonstrated. It is a qualitative synthesis, with no figures of its own.

  Sport-specific training induced adaptations in postural control and their relationship with athletic performance · Erika Zemková, Zuzana Kováčiková

• 2024
  Context Archers Published later

  23 Ukrainian archers aged 13 to 14 from a sports school in Kharkiv, two months at three sessions a week during the preparatory part of training: the progression runs from balls, cushions and boards to a mini-trampoline and wobble platforms, up to holding the string at full draw and shooting while standing on unstable equipment, with eyes open and closed. The only measure is a questionnaire: before the programme 6 of the 23 (26.1%) thought balance mattered, 6 denied it and 11 did not know; afterwards, 17 of 23 (73.9%) answered yes, with a chi-squared of 10.83 that treats the same people as independent. The score was not measured.

  Using Balancing Equipment in Archer Training · Igor Gulich

• 2024
  Against Archers Published later

  30 national-level Indian male archers randomly assigned to three groups of ten, six weeks with three sessions a week: balance work only, Pilates plus balance work, nothing added. The balance-only group, twenty minutes a session first on the floor and then on foam, goes on the twelve-arrow score from 108.50 ± 9.05 to 111.40 ± 6.31, the control group from 107.60 ± 6.43 to 106.20 ± 10.16, and the difference does not hold (post hoc p = 0.54). Only the group combining Pilates with balance work pulls away from the control group, from 96.10 to 103.30 (p = 0.03), but it started about twelve points below the other two and cannot be told apart from balance work alone (p = 0.54). Ten archers per group are few for detecting a small effect, and the article does not say whether the analysis allows for the starting values.

  Effect of Pilates Exercise Combined with Balance Training on Lumbopelvic Stability and Shooting Accuracy in National Level Archers · Sadra Khan, Deepak Malhotra, Meenu Dhingra, Mohammad Ahsan, Shibili Nuhmani, Mohd Arshad Bari

• 2024
  For Archers Published later

  12 young club archers aged 13 to 17, wobble board training, a single group with no control: stork test hold time rises (t = 6.199, p < 0.001) and so does the score at 30 m (t = 5.437, df = 11, p < 0.001), with the number of arrows not stated. Without a control group the effect of the board cannot be separated from that of normal shooting practice, and the journal has questionable editorial standards: it does not decide the status.

  The Impact of Utilising a Wobble Board for Training on The Precision Archery Shots a 30-Meter Distance among Athletes Questionable venue · Ladia Apsari Hasibuan, Herli Pardilla, Muhammad Iqbal

• 2025
  Against Archers Published later

  25 beginner secondary-school students from Kırıkkale randomly assigned, post-test only: over 6 arrows at 10 m the group that had done perturbation exercises in the drawing position scores 16.07 (SD 7.80, n = 14) against 15.27 (SD 4.59, n = 11) for the group doing band pulls and empty-bow draws, with p = 0.77. The comparison is between two kinds of active work rather than against a group doing nothing, and baseline measures are missing, but the arrow count was kept equal between the groups. After the null the authors note that the three highest scores of the test (32, 25, 22) belong to the perturbation group and draw a possible benefit from it: those are three people out of twenty-five, and that group was the larger, so the probability of them all falling there by chance is about one in six. The duration of the intervention is reported nowhere.

  Pertürbasyon Eğitiminin Okçuluk Atış Başarısına Etkisi · Emrah Aslan, Doğukan Arıöz

• 2025
  Context Review Published later

  A systematic review of 20 controlled studies on 664 athletes from many sports, selected from 285: instability resistance training improves static and dynamic balance in judo, basketball, weightlifting, football, gymnastics and handball, but several tests show no difference between groups, from single-leg stance in footballers to the Star Excursion test in basketball players. Four to eight weeks at two to five sessions are enough. Quality is the point: PEDro scores from 4 to 8, no study blinded for the athletes, the trainers or the assessors, allocation concealment in only one of the twenty, and 80 to 90% of the interventions mixing instability with other methods. The only archery study included is the weakest of the group at 4 out of 10, measures balance rather than score and has no control group.

  The effect of instability resistance training on balance ability among athletes: a systematic review · Jianxin Gao, Xinxin Fu, Hang Xu, Qi Guo, Xiaopeng Wang

• 2025
  Context Review Published later

  A systematic review of 16 studies on archers, all cross-sectional: nearly all under ten archers per group and only three above twenty, five of weak quality and one strong, meta-analysis not feasible and no study on the centre of gravity. It says what state the literature behind the claim is in, not whether balance training works.

  Relationship Between Shooting Performance and Biomechanical Parameters Associated with Body Stability in Archery: A Systematic Review · João Santos, Joana Barreto, Tiago Atalaia, Pedro Aleixo

• 2025
  Context Archers Published later

  30 Indonesian university archers aged 19 to 22 with at least 3 years' practice, randomly assigned to two medicine-ball loads or to control, 3 sessions a week for 8 weeks: the stork test hold rises from 41 to 52 and from 42 to 53 seconds on the left leg and from 43 to 55 and from 41 to 52 on the right in the trained groups (p < 0.05), while the control group moves by five seconds without significance. Accuracy is not among the reported outcomes. Two things to add. The article declares, in its aim, its procedure and its analysis, an accuracy test at thirty metres carried out in the ninth week, and in the results that test does not appear: no number, no figure, no mention. And no outcome can be recomputed, because everything sits in two bar charts, with no standard deviations, t values or exact probabilities, and without the repeated measures analysis of variance the methods declare; the comparison between the two loads, moreover, is described as a paired t-test between different groups, which is not a possible operation.

  Enhancing archery-specific physical fitness: A controlled trial on the effects of medicine ball load variations · Ferry Yohannes Wattimena, Hidayat Humaid, Johansyah Lubis, Octavian Serka Yudha Pratama, Dadan Resmana

• 2026
  For Archers Published later

  30 national-level professional compound archers with 4 to 8 years' practice, 12 weeks of BOSU balance work added to their shooting, a single group: the score over 15 arrows at 18 m goes from 88.62 ± 12.09 to 104.60 ± 23.70 (+15.98 ± 25.49) and the change in static balance correlates with the change in score (rho = 0.594, FDR p = 0.008 on the right; rho = 0.489, FDR p = 0.022 on the left). With no control group the rise cannot be attributed to the programme, and the standard deviation of the change exceeds the mean gain, so some archers got worse.

  Associations between changes in postural control, shoulder proprioception, and shooting accuracy in professional compound archers · Sema Acaröz, Tuba Yerlikaya, Hüseyin Bilal Özkader, Yelda Kıngır Soykurt

• 2026
  Context Archers Published later

  25 women archers aged 15 to 17 from the Patiala region, eight weeks of yoga with no control group: balance goes from 32.11 ± 1.92 to 32.84 ± 2.41 with t = 3.247 against a critical value of 2.064. The gain is minimal, the score is not among the outcomes and the journal's editorial standards are doubtful, so this result does not decide the status.

  Effects of yoga training on anthropometric and selected health-related fitness components in female archery players Questionable venue · Kamalpreet Kaur, Parmveer Singh

• 2026
  Context Review Published later

  A systematic review of 15 studies between 2015 and 2025: among the balance programmes included, the eighteen-session Bosu circuit on twelve archers aged 14 to 17 raises the score by over thirty per cent, with a single-group design, no blinding and the exercise dosage undeclared. The authors report it as an example of how large the gains become when the control group is missing.

  Systematic Review of Exercise Interventions in Archery: Injury Management and Performance Outcomes · Ambusam Subramaniam, Fairus Fariza Zainudin, Mon Redee Sut Txi

Status history

1. 2016 Not studied The first study to train archers' balance improves dynamic balance but not static balance, which is exactly the kind the shooting stance calls for, and accuracy is not measured. The question stays unanswered.
2. 2018 Reported The first study of archers that counts points is a randomised experiment on twenty-two Ukrainian beginners: adding wobble-board shooting and a spirit level on the sight takes the score from 252 to 340 out of 600, against 247 to 298 in the control group. The sample is small, the journal regional, and by the end the two groups differ only in score and in the hold with one hand, not in the strength tests: supporting evidence, limited to beginners.
3. 2020 Reported It is documented that on each archer's lowest-scoring arrow the centre of pressure moves further than on the best one. This measures the relationship between balance and arrow rather than training anything, so it confirms why the claim is plausible without raising its status.
4. 2023 Reported A year that brings two supporting results and a review that cuts them down to size. Twelve archers aged 14 to 17, eighteen sessions of a Bosu circuit: the single-leg hold goes from 44.1 to 51.4 seconds and the score at 30 metres from 216.5 to 282.8, with individual gains between forty-one and eighty points and nobody standing still. There is no control group, a jump of sixty-six points in eighteen sessions is too large to be balance alone, and within that same study those who gained the most balance were not those who gained the most score. A second single-group circuit, on thirty archers aged 10 to 13, improves balance and score together, but had arrows shot at every station, so it does not separate one from the other. In the same year a review of one hundred and twenty-six articles, ten of them on archery, concludes that the step from trained balance to performance is not demonstrated. Reported, at the limit.
5. 2024 Contested The year of the first controlled null result, and it comes from high-level archers. In thirty national-level archers, six weeks of balance work alone do not shift the score compared with a group doing nothing extra (p = 0.54), and only those combining balance with Pilates pull away from the control group, though they started twelve points lower. It is a randomised trial with a passive control, the design that had been missing, and it points against: studies of archers now go in opposite directions. On the other side, a before-and-after study of twelve club youngsters on a wobble board finds the score rising, but with no control and in a questionable journal, and a Ukrainian group measures only what archers think of training on unstable equipment. Contested.
6. 2025 Contested A second null result on archers arrives, this time in beginners: in twenty-five youngsters, perturbation exercises in the drawing position produce no different score from band pulls and dry drawing. On its own it would not have been enough, since it compares two active programmes, but it adds to the 2024 randomised trial with a passive control. In the same year two reviews explain why the whole family should be read with caution: none of the twenty controlled studies of instability training is blinded, allocation concealment appears in only one, the only study on archers is the weakest of the group at 4 out of 10 on the PEDro scale, and in eighty to ninety per cent of cases instability is mixed with other work. Contested.
7. 2026 Contested Twelve weeks of Bosu balance work added to shooting, in thirty professional compound archers, take the score over fifteen arrows at 18 metres from 88.6 to 104.6, and those who improve their static balance most also gain most, with correlations between 0.49 and 0.59. It remains a single group with no control, and the spread between archers, plus or minus twenty-five points, exceeds the average gain, so some got worse. A review from the same year adds the reason to read the whole family with caution, since without a control group the reported gains reach more than thirty per cent of the score. Eight weeks of yoga raise the balance of twenty-five young women archers slightly, again with no control and with the score not among the outcomes. The before-and-after studies keep rising, while the randomised trial with a passive control in national-level archers still shows no effect: contested.

Related

Related articles

• Posture and stability in archery: what biomechanists revealCentre of pressure, bow movement while aiming, balance before and after the release, the trunk and balance tests: what the biomechanics of stability measures and how much it weighs on the score.
• How to improve your archery score: where to start and what to work onHow to measure your level, what sets better archers apart and the levers on your score, from release to mind and load, and how well the evidence holds.
• Balance, core and proprioception: the training you never seeWhat balance and core exercises change in archers, which test is linked to score, and what shoulder position sense does and does not tell you.

Research lines

• 26 studiesBalance, core and proprioception: the interventions, year by year
• 102 studiesFrom the total on the scorecard to the arrow's coordinates

Other claims in this domain

• ReportedA battery of physical tests identifies the most promising young archers7 studies · 373 archers measuredStatus since 2018
• ReportedA few weeks of archery improves children's balance1 study · 32 archers measuredStatus since 2009
• ReportedA mobility and stretching programme improves an archer's flexibility1 study · 30 archers measuredStatus since 2025
• ReportedA spell of reduced training makes the score drop1 study · 9 archers measuredStatus since 2021
• ReportedA strength programme away from the range increases an archer's measured strength15 studies · 316 archers measuredStatus since 2018

See all claims on physical training