For a beginner, reaching full draw by pushing the bow out with the anchor already set does not change the score compared with the conventional draw

1 study · 216 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 on this question, from 1969. At a high school in Illinois, 216 girls aged between fourteen and fifteen and a half, on their first archery course, learn two ways of reaching full draw over nineteen daily lessons: four classes bring the string hand to the anchor first and then extend the bow arm by pushing the bow out, while three use the conventional draw, with the bow arm already extended and the string drawn back to the face. The groups did not differ on intelligence or on general motor ability, and at the end the score of the final round does not differ between the two methods. It is a null result and it carries little weight, because the paper gives neither the means nor the test value, the classes were assigned to a method as whole classes, the push classes were taught at different times of day from the others, and nothing is said about the distance or the number of arrows in the final round. With school bows of 20 to 30 lb and lessons at ten to twenty-five yards, pushing did no worse. The study does not show whether the two methods also come out level with heavier bows, with adult archers or with modern technique, and it does not measure the stability of the anchor, even though that was the problem it set out from.

Also phrased as: "push method of drawing"; "pushing the bow instead of pulling the string"; "anchor first, then push"; "push draw for beginners"; "pull versus push draw"

In practice

Beginners are almost always taught to extend the bow arm first and then bring the string to the face. The opposite approach, anchor first and bow pushed out afterwards, comes back now and then for those who lack the strength to draw or struggle to find their anchor, and it always carries the same objection: a push is never repeated the same way twice.

Evidence

1969
For Archers Published later

216 first-year high school girls (aged 14 to 15 and a half) on their first archery course, 4 classes using the push method and 3 the conventional draw, 19 daily lessons with fibreglass bows of 20 to 30 lb at 10, 20 and 25 yards indoors: the t-test on the score of the final round finds no significant difference between the groups. The paper reports neither the means, the standard deviations nor the test value, and does not describe the final round (pp. 50 and 53).

Effectiveness of Two Methods of Attaining a Full Draw by Beginning Archers · Florence D. Grebner
1969
Context Archers Published later

In the same study, how level the comparison started and how reliable the score is: the two groups do not differ on intelligence or on the Scott and French motor ability battery, and between the two rounds of the last days the score correlates at 0.80 in the pull group and 0.78 in the push group. Weighing against a level start are the whole-class allocation and the different times of day, which the author herself points out, and the fact that, to keep classes full, 19 girls with no intelligence score were kept in, 13 of them in the push group, along with 14 who had already shot a few times, 8 of them in the push group.

Effectiveness of Two Methods of Attaining a Full Draw by Beginning Archers · Florence D. Grebner

Status history

1960 Not studied Nobody in the registry's bibliography has yet compared two ways of reaching full draw. Teaching material has argued about it for a long time: some keep the bow arm still and pull the string, some open both arms together, some advise against pushing because it would never be repeated the same way. These are teaching preferences, none of them tested on the target: not studied.
1969 Reported The first comparison arrives. Two hundred and sixteen first-year high school girls in Illinois, aged between fourteen and fifteen and a half, learn to shoot over nineteen lessons, with fibreglass bows of 20 to 30 lb and indoor distances of ten to twenty-five yards. Four classes reach full draw by pushing the bow out with the string hand already at the anchor, three with the conventional draw. The groups did not differ on intelligence or on general motor ability, and at the end the score of the final round does not differ, although the paper does not report the means. A single study, with whole classes assigned to a method and taught at different times of day: reported.

Cite

APA

Campagna, M. (2026). For a beginner, reaching full draw by pushing the bow out with the anchor already set does not change the score compared with the conventional draw (Version 2). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/pushing-the-bow-to-full-draw-beginners

BibTeX

@misc{campagna2026_spintaarcopienoallungoprincipianti,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {For a beginner, reaching full draw by pushing the bow out with the anchor already set does not change the score compared with the conventional draw},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/pushing-the-bow-to-full-draw-beginners},
  note = {Version 2; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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