For novices, practising with the non-dominant side as well improves the side they shoot with

The summary today

There is a single experiment, on novices, and it points the way the claim does, but it is a hint rather than proof. Forty right-handed novices, randomly assigned to four groups, shot sixty arrows over three days at a target 10 m away, splitting them differently between the right and left sides. Compared with the starting test, the dominant side improved by almost 20% in those who had split their arrows half and half, by 15% with three quarters on the right, by 9% with three quarters on the left and by just under 8% in those who had shot only on the right: even those who shot most of their arrows with the weak side did at least as well as those who shot them all with the good one. At a new distance, 15 m, those who had trained on one side only shot 9% worse than before, the bilateral groups 4% better. The work appeared on two pages of a German federation magazine, without scientific peer review: the tests were three arrows per side, and the text reports neither the number of archers per group nor any statistical test between groups, so there is no telling how much of these differences is chance; the authors themselves leave open whether the advantage holds for archers whose technique is already formed.

Also phrased as: "shooting with the other hand"; "bilateral training in archery"; "shooting from the non-dominant side"; "bilateral practice and score"; "shooting left-handed to improve right-handed"

Evidence

• 2010
  For Archers Published later

  40 right-handed novices randomly assigned to four groups (50% of arrows with the dominant side and 50% with the other, 75 and 25, 25 and 75, dominant side only), target at 10 m, a standard introduction to technique and then 60 arrows over three days: from the starting test to the two final tests the dominant side improves by almost 20% in the half-and-half group, by 15% in the 75 and 25 group, by 9% in the 25 and 75 group and by just under 8% in the group shooting only with the dominant side. The advantage of the bilateral groups is clearest in the two-week test. The tests were three arrows per side and the text reports no statistical tests between groups.

  Bilaterales Üben im Bogenschießen · Andreas Bund, Timm Wöltjen

• 2010
  Context Archers Published later

  In the same experiment, in the transfer test at a new distance, 15 m, with three arrows per side and the score summed under FITA rules, those who had trained only with the dominant side shoot 9% worse than in the starting test, while the bilateral groups gain 4%. The test adds the two sides together, so it is not only about the shooting side; the authors read it as a sign that bilateral training makes adapting to a new task easier.

  Bilaterales Üben im Bogenschießen · Andreas Bund, Timm Wöltjen

Status history

1. 2010 Reported The first experiment on the question: forty right-handed novices are randomly assigned to four ways of splitting sixty arrows over three days. The dominant side improves by almost 20% when the arrows are split half and half between the two sides, by 15% with three quarters on the right, by 9% with three quarters on the left and by just under 8% when shooting only on the right; at a new distance those who trained on one side only shoot 9% worse than before, the bilateral groups 4% better. It is a randomised study, but on novices, with sixty arrows in all, tests of three arrows per side and no statistical test reported, on two pages of a federation magazine: the evidence in favour is there, and it is as limited as evidence can be.

Related

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• Muscle asymmetry in archers: where it shows, where it does not, and whether to train the other sideShooting loads the two sides differently. What studies have measured in archers' arms, fingers and trunk, and whether the other side needs training too.

Research lines

• 35 studiesTeaching and learning archery: sixty years of instructional trials
• 25 studiesShooting and asymmetry: fifty years of measurements

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