Matteo Campagna
ITEN
Menu
Menu

While aiming, the bow arm sways slowly more than it trembles

2 studies · 31 archers measured

ForContextAgainst2010201220142016201820202022202420262024, for, n = 162024, context, n = 162011, context, n = 15
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.

A single study has broken the bow's movement during aiming down by frequency and set the slow part against the fast part, and it points this way: in 16 young archers, with an accelerometer fixed to the bow, the slow part of the movement, between 1 and 10 Hz, is larger than the fast part, between 10 and 20 Hz, in all sixteen, and it is also the part that varies most from one archer to the next, with a spread of 47 points against 24 on the authors' scale. A 2011 abstract on 15 recurve archers had already pointed the same way for horizontal movement, with a large share of the power below 1 Hz. The picture stops there for three reasons. The 2024 study is descriptive, with no statistical tests, and mixes recurve and compound shot at different distances; the boundary between sway and tremor is the authors' choice, so much so that in the 2011 abstract the tremor linked to the score is the vertical one between 3 and 8 Hz, which under the 2024 split would fall in the slow band; and nobody has yet measured which of the two parts costs points.

Also phrased as: "tremor while aiming"; "bow arm shaking at full draw"; "slow sway of the bow arm"; "bow micro-movements"; "bow arm tremor"

In practice

Archers often hear that shaking at full draw means being weak or tired, and sway and tremor tend to be used as if they were the same thing.

Evidence

  • 2011
    Context Archers Published later

    15 male recurve archers, from elite to sub-elite, with an accelerometer on the bow during a prolonged 10-second aim at a target 2.5 metres away: in horizontal tremor a large share of the power lies in the 0 to 1 Hz band, which makes it largely a slow drift, and it is not linked to the score. Vertical tremor is, both as amplitude (r² = 0.26) and as power between 3 and 8 Hz (r² = 0.30), which the authors put down to oscillations of central origin. It is a conference abstract and gives no figure for the share of the slow band.

    Biomechanical Predictors of Recurve Archery Performance · Martin H. Rose, Niels Dall, Kaare Seidelin, Bente R. Jensen

  • 2024
    For Archers Published later

    16 archers aged 10 to 20, 6 shooting compound at 50 metres and 10 recurve at 30, with an accelerometer fixed to the bow and the movement during aiming broken down by frequency: the authors read the 1 to 10 Hz band as sway of the bow arm and the 10 to 20 Hz band as tremor, and turn both into a score in which a higher value means less movement. In all sixteen the slow-band score is lower than the fast-band score (for example 43.01 against 70.70 for archer 9, 83.15 against 84.05 for archer 2), so the slow part of the movement is the larger one. The most frequent peaks fall at 1, 3, 6 and 10 Hz. No statistical test.

    Archery Bow Micro-Movement Profiling Using Inertial Measurement Unit · Jonathan Then Sien Phang, King Hann Lim, Basil Andy Lease, Dar Hung Chiam

  • 2024
    Context Archers Published later

    In the same sample the slow band varies between archers almost twice as much as the fast band: its score runs from 43.01 to 89.97, a spread of 47 points, while the tremor score runs from 69.45 to 93.19, a spread of 24. So the slow part is what tells archers apart, but the study does not link either band to the score of the arrows, which the authors leave for later work.

    Archery Bow Micro-Movement Profiling Using Inertial Measurement Unit · Jonathan Then Sien Phang, King Hann Lim, Basil Andy Lease, Dar Hung Chiam

Status history

  1. 2011 Not studied The first hint comes from a conference abstract on 15 recurve archers, from elite to sub-elite: in the bow's horizontal movement, measured with an accelerometer during a prolonged aim, a large share of the power lies below 1 Hz, which makes it largely a slow drift rather than a tremor. The study does not set the slow part against the fast part, though, and gives no figure for the share, so the question still has no measurement: not studied.
  2. 2024 Reported An accelerometer fixed to the bows of 16 archers aged 10 to 20, 6 shooting compound and 10 recurve, splits the movement during aiming into two bands: in all sixteen the slow one, from 1 to 10 Hz, is larger than the tremor band, from 10 to 20 Hz. Between archers the slow part varies almost twice as much as the fast part, a spread of 47 points against 24 on the authors' scale, so it is also the part that tells archers apart. It is a single descriptive study in conference proceedings, with two bow types and two distances mixed together and no statistical test: reported.

Related

Related articles

Research lines

Studies describe groups of archers, and your own numbers show how far the finding applies to your shooting.

See the full assessment
Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). While aiming, the bow arm sways slowly more than it trembles (Version 1). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/slow-sway-versus-tremor-while-aiming

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_oscillazionelentaetremore,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {While aiming, the bow arm sways slowly more than it trembles},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/technique/slow-sway-versus-tremor-while-aiming},
  note = {Version 1; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

Other claims in this domain

See all claims on technique and biomechanics