Core training improves the score

The summary today

Trunk work goes with better scores, but the chain from the exercise to the arrow has been closed by a single study, and not cleanly. The direct measurements on archers are mostly associations taken once: in fifty young Malaysian archers, sit-ups in one minute are among the few fitness tests linked to the score, and in twenty-three university club archers the plank hold explains about seven per cent of the variation in scores at 18 metres. Four studies have trained the trunk and then counted the points, and none of them does it cleanly. Two have no control group: for thirty-six children only p values are published, and for twelve teenagers the t values differ between the abstract and the table. A randomised trial on twelve adolescents claims an effect on the score without publishing a single value for it. The last is a randomised trial on thirty national-level archers, where only the group doing Pilates together with balance work pulls away from the control group, but it started twelve points below the others, and against balance work alone the difference does not hold. On the other side, in eighteen young recurve archers none of the three core tests is linked to the score, and several programmes that train the trunk in archers improve the trunk without measuring a single arrow: in one, the plank goes from 78.5 to 102.3 seconds and the arrows are not among the outcomes. A hint of mechanism remains, since in elite archers the string-side multifidus is more active on exactly the ten-scoring arrows and transversus abdominis activation rises with level, but a comparison between levels does not show that training it raises the score.

Also phrased as: "core stability for archers"; "plank and archery score"; "abdominal work for better shooting"; "trunk stability and accuracy"; "training the midsection in archery"

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. For this claim another absence matters: it is a core stability intervention in which the core is never measured, neither for strength nor for endurance, before or after.

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

• 2017
  Context Archers Published later

  12 Malaysian archers aged 13 to 18 split into two groups, eight weeks of core stability on top of normal training: body sway on the force plate falls in the trained group (lateral range F = 7.952, p < 0.05 at four and at eight weeks). The authors claim a significant effect on the plank, on push-ups and on the score of six arrows at 50 metres as well, but the score never appears with any value, and the plank effect sizes are identical to those for lateral sway, probably a copying error. At eight weeks the link between plank and score is strong but not significant (p = 0.077).

  The Effectiveness of a Core Muscles Stability Program in Reducing the Postural Sway of Adolescent Archers: A Panacea for a better Archery Performance · Pathmanathan K. Suppiah, Tomny Wong Kee Kiet, Rabiu Muazu Musa, Mohamad Razali Abdullah, Jeffrey Low Fook Lee, Ahmad Bisyri Husin Musawi Maliki

• 2018
  For Archers Published later

  36 children aged 10 to 12 from two clubs in Yogyakarta, 8 sessions of a ten-station circuit in which core holds are turned into games, with hold times rising from 15 to 30 seconds, and the score at 15 m before and after: the improvement is significant in each group separately (p = 0.001 and p = 0.002, df = 17, 18 children per group) and normality is checked in all four sets. The authors report no means, no differences and no effect size, only p values, and there is no control group.

  Developing Core Stability Exercise Model of Playing Approach for Children Aged 10-12 Years to Improve Accuracy in 15 Meters Archery · Oktita Indah Pratiwi, Mansur

• 2019
  For Archers Published later

  50 young Malaysian archers aged 13 to 20, six fitness tests regressed against the score over six arrows at 50 m: sit-ups in one minute are among the few associated with the score (beta 0.299, t = 1.73, p = 0.026 as the authors report it). It is a single measurement over a single end.

  A machine learning approach of predicting high potential archers by means of physical fitness indicators · Rabiu Muazu Musa, Anwar P. P. Abdul Majeed, Zahari Taha, Siow Wee Chang, Ahmad Fakhri Ab. Nasir, Mohamad Razali Abdullah

• 2021
  Context Archers Published later

  28 Indian male archers at three levels, 10 arrows at 10 m with electromyography of transversus abdominis and multifidus across five phases of the shot: at release the transversus works at 32.85% of maximal contraction in the elite group, 23.89% in the trained group and 12.15% in beginners (group effect F = 80.65, p ≤ 0.001). Multifidus and co-contraction separate beginners from the other two groups but do not distinguish trained from elite (p = 0.089 and p = 0.294). The score was not measured.

  EMG Activity of Transversus Abdominis, Multifidus and Co-Contraction Index in Different Phases Amongst Varied Level Archers: A Cross-Sectional Study · Sheikh Azhar, Saurabh Sharma, Shalini Sharma, Tarushi Tanwar

• 2022
  Against Review Published later

  A review of 21 studies on athletes from various sports: core and balance programmes, 4 to 8 weeks with sessions of 25 to 75 minutes, improve trunk balance, strength and endurance, but in several studies they leave throwing speed or running economy unchanged, and in archery there is no intervention study at all. The trunk gain is there; the transfer to performance is not demonstrated.

  The Role of Neuromuscular Control of Postural and Core Stability in Functional Movement and Athlete Performance · Erika Zemková, Ludmila Zapletalová

• 2022
  Context Archers Published later

  13 archers from Surakarta, a single measurement: abdominal strength measured with sit-ups correlates with the score at r = 0.903 (p < 0.01). A correlation that high on thirteen people, in a questionable journal, stays as context and does not decide the status.

  Relationship of Arm Muscle Strength, Arm Muscle Endurance, Abdominal Strength and Balance with Arrow Achievement Questionable venue · Gagah Nurya Putra, M. Furqon Hidayatullah, Sapta Kunta Purnama

• 2023
  For Archers Published later

  23 archers from an Indonesian university club, score at 18 m with a standard bow and a path analysis: the plank hold, 269.30 ± 25.68 seconds on average, is associated with the score with a coefficient of 0.266 (p = 0.022), about 7% of the variation. In the same model, longer arms go with longer plank holds (0.399, p = 0.040) and VO2max predicts them better still (0.511, p = 0.011), but the effects running from build and aerobic fitness through the core are worth 1.1% and 1.9% of the variation: the core is not the route by which the rest reaches the target. The total effects printed in the article, 0.505 and 0.649, cannot be used, because they are summed with the coefficients towards the plank instead of towards the score.

  THE INFLUENCE OF ARM LENGTH, VO2 MAX AND CORE STABILITY ON ARROW SKILLS · Rifqi Rabbani, Junaidi, Susilo

• 2023
  Context Archers Published later

  12 male archers aged 16 to 18 from Yogyakarta, eighteen plank circuit sessions, a single group with no control: the authors report a significant rise in accuracy over 36 arrows at 40 metres, with t = 35.023 in the table and 34.019 in the abstract (df = 11, p = 0.000). With no control group and figures that do not match between two parts of the article, it counts as context.

  How Does Circuit Plank Exercise Affect Arm Muscle Strength and Archery Accuracy · Betrix Teofa Perkasa Wibafied Billy Yachsie

• 2024
  Context Archers Published later

  18 Indonesian recurve archers aged 13 to 14: none of the three core endurance tests is linked to the score, with sit-ups rho = 0.044 (p = 0.86), plank rho = 0.053 (p = 0.83) and superman rho = -0.150 (p = 0.55). A small sample and a single measurement, so it counts as context rather than as a contrary study of comparable quality.

  Physical capacity and performance correlation in sub-elite Indonesian archery athletes · Afif Rusdiawan, Donny Ardy Kusuma, Muhammad Labib Siena Ar Rasyid, José Vicente García Jiménez, Mochammad Purnomo, Himawan Wismanadi, et al.

• 2024
  Context Archers Published later

  16 archers from the Jakarta regional squad, a wall squat and core and plank programme with no control group: the mean values rise, wall squat from 88.19 ± 31.98 to 121.00 ± 42.30 and plank from 3.94 ± 1.88 to 8.81 ± 4.15 in units the text does not make clear, and no difference emerges between the two programmes (p = 0.19 and p = 0.20). Within the squad the values vary fourfold from one athlete to another, at least one archer stays at the minimum even after the programme, and the final plank distribution is strongly skewed (Shapiro-Wilk W = 0.738, p < 0.001) while the authors state that the data are normal. No arrow was counted.

  Kondisi Fisik: Wall Squat Dan Core and Plank Pada Atlet Pelatda PON Panahan DKI Jakarta 2024 · Ferry Yohanes Wattimena, Octavian Serka Yudha Pratama, Aridhotul Haqiyah

• 2024
  For Archers Published later

  30 national-level Indian male archers randomly assigned to three groups of ten, six weeks with three sessions a week: Pilates plus balance work, balance work only, nothing added. On the twelve-arrow score only the Pilates plus balance group pulls away from the control group, going from 96.10 ± 12.65 to 103.30 ± 12.65 against a control group that goes from 107.60 to 106.20 (F = 5.11, partial eta squared 0.159, p = 0.032; comparison with control p = 0.03), while against balance work alone, which goes from 108.50 to 111.40, the difference does not hold (p = 0.54). The group that improves started about twelve points below the other two, so part of the gain may be regression towards the mean, and the article does not say whether the analysis allows for the starting values. The core is trained together with balance, and two details do not add up: the participants' table swaps height and weight, and the abstract speaks of twenty minutes a day while the methods give the Pilates group fifty minutes of Pilates plus twenty of balance work.

  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

• 2025
  For Archers Published later

  8 high-level recurve archers, arrows grouped by score: while aiming, the string-side multifidus is more active on ten-scoring arrows than on nines and on eights or below (p < 0.05); in the follow-through the string-side external oblique is more active on tens and transversus abdominis on eights or below. The comparison is within each archer, but it is an association, not a training study.

  A multi-parameter investigation of elite archery: distinguishing individual and shared performance strategies during the aiming and follow-through phases · Raphaël Jacquot, Khaireddine Ben Mansour, Kévin Bouillet, Jean-Philippe Jehl, Gérôme Gauchard

• 2025
  Context Archers Published later

  12 club archers aged 13 to 17, the whole membership, split into two groups of six by pairing their baseline scores, 16 sessions over 8 weeks and no untrained group: the hold goes from 31.83 ± 4.71 to 41.17 ± 4.45 seconds with the bands (+9.34 s) and from 32.17 ± 4.62 to 45.67 ± 4.32 with the plank (+13.50 s). The outcome measured is the hold and not the score, and the Holding Bow Test used to measure it is named and not described: one cannot read whether the bow is held at full draw or merely supported, at what draw weight, or by what criterion the stopwatch stops. The comparison between the two groups is declared significant on the final values, but those values give t = 1.777 on ten degrees of freedom, that is p = 0.106; the comparison on the gains, which the article does not run, gives p = 0.0055 in favour of the plank. The two «correlations» with which the abstract supports that superiority, 0.938 and 0.876, are the correlations between the baseline and the final measurement inside each group: they do not change if the same quantity is added to every final value, so they measure no improvement.

  Differences in the effects of resistance band and plank exercises on arm muscle endurance in archers at the blora archery club · Rachelino Wira Purnama, Arif Pangestu, Frederico Rifqi, Lavaya Yuri Andjani, Danendra Luhung Saskara, Dhany Diva Pradana

• 2025
  Context Archers Published later

  30 Indonesian university archers randomly assigned to two medicine-ball loads or to control, 3 sessions a week for 8 weeks: push-ups rise from 38 to 46 and from 36 to 44 and sit-ups from 56 to 64 and from 57 to 63 in the trained groups (p < 0.05), while the control group does not change significantly. The score is not among the 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 Review Published later

  A systematic review of 15 studies between 2015 and 2025, with no meta-analysis: four core, Pilates and balance programmes all come out significant on accuracy, balance or reduced sway, and the authors report the synthesis without effect sizes. The strongest of the four is the 2024 randomised trial on 30 national-level archers, which is also a source in its own right in the registry: the review says that Pilates combined with balance work beats both the control group and balance work alone on accuracy (F = 5.11, partial eta squared 0.159, p = 0.03), but in the original article's table of comparisons the one against balance work alone gives p = 0.54.

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

• 2026
  Context Archers Published later

  38 competitive archers aged 18 to 25, randomised to 12 weeks of a 60-minute playful circuit three times a week or to their usual training: the plank goes from 78.5 to 102.3 seconds (+30.3%) and push-ups from 22.4 to 28.7 (+28.1%), with p < 0.01, while the control group moves by 1.6% and 1.4%. The core responds to training, but the study does not link that gain to the score.

  From play to performance: effects of fun-based circuit training on muscular strength, endurance, and competitive performance in Indonesian archery athletes · Rifky Riyandi Prastyawan, Yudik Prasetyo, Fathurahman Arjuna, Sabda Hussain As Shafi

Status history

1. 1990 Not studied No study in the registry's bibliography had yet related trunk work to archers' scores, and none had measured arrows after a core programme.
2. 2016 Not studied The first Pilates programme on archers, twenty high-school students over twelve weeks, improves dynamic balance without measuring either the core or the score. The question about the score stays open because nobody asks it.
3. 2017 Not studied The first randomised core stability programme on archers, twelve teenagers aged 13 to 18 over eight weeks, reduces body sway and claims an effect on the score of six arrows at 50 metres too, but publishes not a single value for that score. An effect claimed without figures cannot be weighed, so it stays as context, and the question about the score still has no result that can be read.
4. 2018 Reported The first study of archers that counts points: in thirty-six Indonesian children, eight sessions of core stability turned into games raise the score at 15 metres, and the rise repeats separately in the two club groups. There is no control group and the authors report only p values, with no means and no effect size, so the supporting evidence is limited.
5. 2019 Reported In fifty young Malaysian archers, sit-ups in one minute are associated with the score over six arrows at 50 metres, and they are one of the few fitness tests that are. It is an association measured once, on a single end of six arrows, and by the registry's rules it does not take the claim beyond reported.
6. 2021 Reported Transversus abdominis activation rises with archers' level in every phase of the shot, and multifidus and co-contraction separate beginners from those further on. This explains why the core seems to matter, but a comparison between levels does not show that training it raises the score, so the status stays where it is.
7. 2022 Reported A review of twenty-one studies brings the gap into focus: trunk programmes improve trunk balance, strength and endurance, but the step through to sporting performance is not demonstrated, and none of the studies it gathers is an intervention in archery. It counts as context rather than as a contrary study on archers. In the same year thirteen Indonesian archers show a correlation of 0.903 between sit-ups and score, but the journal is questionable and a correlation that high on thirteen people settles nothing: the status does not change.
8. 2023 Reported A second association in the same direction: in twenty-three university club archers the plank hold, 269 seconds on average, is associated with the score at 18 metres with a coefficient of 0.266, about seven per cent of the variation. The same study shows, though, that almost all the effect of build and aerobic fitness on the score runs directly rather than through the core. In the same year a plank circuit on twelve archers, with no control group, reports better accuracy at 40 metres, with t values that differ between the abstract and the table. Two one-off associations and an uncontrolled before-and-after study do not amount to corroborated.
9. 2024 Reported The picture gets messier, and at the same time the first randomised trial to count arrows arrives. In eighteen young recurve archers none of the three core measures, sit-ups, plank and superman, is linked to the score, and a wall squat and plank programme on sixteen regional squad archers raises the test values without measuring a single arrow. In thirty national-level archers, by contrast, six weeks of Pilates combined with balance work take the twelve-arrow score from 96.1 to 103.3, and only this group pulls away from the control group; but it started about twelve points below the other two, against balance work alone the difference does not hold, and the core is trained there together with balance. It is supporting evidence on archers, not clean enough to lift the status beyond reported.
10. 2025 Reported The first measurements linking trunk work to performance arrive, but sideways on: in eight high-level archers the string-side multifidus is more active on exactly the ten-scoring arrows, in six young archers eight weeks of plank work lengthen a bow-holding test that the article does not describe by thirteen seconds, and a randomised trial with the medicine ball raises arm and abdominal endurance. Supporting evidence on archers, but the score as an outcome is still missing.
11. 2026 Reported The supporting evidence grows and stays fragile. A systematic review counts four core, Pilates and balance programmes, all significant on accuracy, balance or reduced sway; the strongest is the 2024 Pilates trial, which the review describes as better than balance work alone too, whereas in the original article's table that comparison does not hold. In the same year a controlled trial shows that the core responds to training, with the plank going from 78.5 to 102.3 seconds, but does not link that gain to the score.

Related

Related articles

• Specific strength for archers: 8 exercises and why they matterEight specific strength exercises for archers, with the numbers behind them: which muscles work in the shot, which equipment to use, how to plan the week.
• 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.
• 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
• 39 studiesPhysical training interventions: what has been tested

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