Matteo Campagna
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Shooting and asymmetry: fifty years of measuring the arms, hands and trunk

The idea is that always shooting from the same side builds a lopsided body. This page follows the studies that have measured it from 1971 to the present, with X-rays, dynamometers, electromyography, ultrasound and MRI, and sets out the picture they give, one part of the body at a time.

Studies in the registry
25
On archers
20
Years
1971-2026

The question

Archers hear early on that always shooting with the same hand builds one side of the body more than the other, and that it pays to compensate. There are two separate questions inside that idea. The first is whether the load of the shot is asymmetric, and the answer is yes. The second is whether that load leaves an asymmetric body, and here the studies of archers point in opposite directions: in the registry the central claim has been contested since 2025, after being contradicted since 1971.

This page follows the measurements in chronological order. Training advice is in the articles on specific strength and posture; here the subject is what has been measured, in which part of the body, and how much the results weigh.

1971-1984: the spine and the grip

The first study comes from kyudo. In 1971 a group of Japanese orthopaedic surgeons sent a questionnaire to 122 practitioners, then examined and X-rayed the thirty with the most marked complaints: despite the asymmetric shooting posture, none had scoliosis, either cervical or lumbar.

In 1984 came the first measurement of the arms. In ten Japanese university archers, all right-handed, the string hand gripped only slightly harder than the other, with no significant difference. Two contrary studies, one on the spine and one on grip alone in ten people, were enough to say that the evidence ran against the claim but not to refute it: the status stayed at contradicted for forty years.

The load is asymmetric

Electromyography is what showed that the two sides work differently. In 2022 nine recreational recurve archers shot with electrodes on both arms: during the draw the string arm used more latissimus dorsi and biceps, the bow arm more lateral deltoid and triceps, while the anterior and posterior deltoids worked in the same way. In 2025 five elite Russian recurve archers showed the same in the trunk, with pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi and upper trapezius more active on the bow side and the erector spinae on the string side. This is the premise of the idea, not its proof: these measurements describe how the muscles work during the shot, not how the body is built at rest.

The arms and hands

In the arms and hands, after the near-identical grip of 1984, more recent studies have tended to find a difference between the sides. In 2018 fifteen elite Korean archers, compared with thirty people who did no sport, had stronger adductors and internal rotators in the bow shoulder only. In 2025 the first study the registry counts in support measured thirteen young Turkish archers, all right-handed: the drawing side was stronger, with small differences in the large shoulder and elbow movements (d from 0.2 to 0.6) and in hand grip, 30.4 against 28.8 kg, and very large ones in the finger pinches (d up to 1.74). On the same side the external rotators of the shoulder were tighter, 10.6 against 6.6 cm.

The grip figures are less clear-cut. In twenty young Malaysian archers the gap between the hands was 6 kg, against 1.3 in twenty sedentary peers, but nobody tested it and the archers weighed 14 kg more. In a hundred Indian recurve archers, in a questionable venue, the gap was actually smaller in the experienced archers than in the beginners, 0.9 against 1.9 kg. The comparison between disciplines also concerns the arms. In 37 pre-elite Taiwanese archers the recurve group had stronger horizontal abductors than the compound group on both sides, 19.0 against 15.4 kgf on the string side and 19.1 against 15.4 on the bow side, although the recurve group was heavier and had more men.

The trunk: ultrasound and MRI

In the trunk the expected asymmetry does not appear. In 2025 ultrasound in fifteen young elite Israeli archers found the same thickness of multifidus, transversus abdominis and internal oblique on the dominant side and on the other, at rest and during contraction. In the thirteen Turkish archers the side plank lasted 63.1 seconds on one side and 59.4 on the other, with no difference, and lateral trunk flexion was the same. This points the same way as the 1971 X-rays, with measurements that look at the muscles and not only the bones.

Magnetic resonance imaging answered a related question. In 2017 a study of 352 Japanese athletes, 88 of them archers, found that by the age of 16-18 archers already have smaller lateral abdominals than wrestlers, 50.4 against 62.9 cm², and that between age 12 and adulthood their trunk changes very little. Compared with values for non-athlete students taken from another study, though, the young athletes in the study, archers included, had cross-sections 50-66% larger in the lateral abdominals, psoas and erectors. The study does not compare the two sides, and its age groups are different people, not the same archers followed over the years.

The shot or the dominant hand

Almost all of these studies compare the right side with the left in right-handed people, whose string hand is also their dominant hand, and a difference between the hands exists even without a bow. In 2020 34 sedentary young men were split between twelve weeks of shooting and no activity: grip rose in both hands by similar amounts, and the gap between the sides did not widen. In 2025 seventeen Indonesian beginners had a more muscular string arm than bow arm before they started. And a 2026 systematic review reports 36 beginners followed for twelve weeks, in whom the precision of an arm movement improved to a similar extent on both sides; it measures movement control, however, not the muscles.

Shooting from both sides

The usual remedy has two studies behind it. In 2021 a German comparison of 25 competitive archers who shoot from both sides and 50 who shoot from one found asymmetries in shoulder and scapular rotation only in the second group: an association seen at a single point in time. In 2010 an experiment with forty beginners had looked at the score: those who split sixty arrows evenly between the two sides improved their dominant side by almost 20%, those who shot only right-handed by just under 8%, with no statistical tests between the groups.

Another pair of studies talks about rebalancing, but in a different sense: the ratio between upper and lower trapezius, not between right and left. In 31 elite Korean recurve archers who reported shoulder pain, randomised, eight weeks of prone exercises took it from 3.47 to 1.43, against 1.57 and 1.39 in the control group; in 14 Taiwanese university archers it fell from 2.2 to 1.1, with a measure of poor reliability. In the first study the score did not change; in the second it rose in the trained group, from 628 to 639 out of 720, without pulling significantly away from the control group in the final comparison.

What remains open

The picture depends on the region: in the arms and fingers a difference between the sides is found, in the trunk it is not. What is missing is the study that would show whether shooting produces it, meaning the same archers followed from their first year over one or more seasons, with strength, mobility and muscle cross-section measured on both sides alongside a group of peers who do not shoot. Most of the measurements of the two sides come from groups of ten to twenty archers, often teenagers. For compound the only separate data are the Taiwanese comparison, which measures the string side and the bow side without comparing them with each other.

How we came to know it

  1. 1971OriginTomizawa et al. 1971 An orthopaedical analysis of the kyudo athleteAn orthopaedic survey of kyudo: of the 122 practitioners who answered the questionnaire, the 30 with the most marked complaints were examined and X-rayed, and none had cervical or lumbar scoliosis.
  2. 1984ExtensionTsuji et al. 1984 Physical Fitness and Energy Metabolism of the Archers (Part 2)In 10 right-handed university archers the string hand grips only slightly harder than the other, with no significant difference: the first measurement of grip on both sides.
  3. 2010ExtensionBund et al. 2010 Bilaterales Üben im Bogenschießen40 right-handed beginners randomised to four ways of splitting 60 arrows between the two sides: the dominant side improves by almost 20% with the arrows split evenly and by just under 8% shooting only right-handed, with no statistical tests between groups.
  4. 2015ExtensionTihanyi et al. 2015 Investigation of Hungarian Conquest Period (10th c. AD) archery on the basis of activity-induced stress markers on the skeleton – preliminary results81 Hungarian skeletons from the 10th century, 58 buried with bow and arrows: the marks of muscle loading are on both sides, and the biceps is asymmetric to the right in 11 cases out of 17, less often than in men buried without weapons.
  5. 2017MethodShitara et al. 2017 Age- and athletic event-related differences in trunk muscularity in junior athletes: A comparison with the results for the senior athletesMagnetic resonance imaging in 352 Japanese athletes, 88 of them archers: in males the archers' trunk is smaller than the wrestlers' by the age of 16-18 and changes very little from age 12 to adulthood.
  6. 2018ExtensionKim et al. 2018 The Characteristics of Shoulder Muscles in Archery Athletes15 elite archers against 30 non-athletes: adductors and internal rotators stronger in the bow shoulder only.
  7. 2020ExtensionZolkafi et al. 2020 Influence of Isometric Contraction during Archery Training and Detraining on the Muscles and Hand Grip Strength in Sedentary Youth: A Randomized Controlled TrialThe first experiment with a control group that does not shoot: in 34 sedentary young men twelve weeks of shooting raise the grip of both hands by similar amounts, and the gap between the sides does not widen.
  8. 2020ExtensionKim et al. 2020 Effects of Lower Trapezius Strengthening Exercise on Shoulder Pain, Function and Archery Performance in Elite Archers31 elite recurve archers with shoulder pain, randomised: eight weeks of prone exercises take the ratio between upper and lower trapezius from 3.47 to 1.43, against 1.57 and 1.39 in the control group, and the score does not change.
  9. 2021ExtensionSchmitt et al. 2021 Unilateral and bilateral training competitive archers differ in some potentially unhealthy neck-shoulder region movement behaviour characteristics25 competitive archers who shoot from both sides and 50 who shoot from one, matched: only the second group shows asymmetries in shoulder and scapular rotation.
  10. 2022MethodDorshorst et al. 2022 Archery's signature: an electromyographic analysis of the upper limbElectromyography on both arms of 9 recreational archers: during the draw the string arm uses more latissimus dorsi and biceps, the bow arm more lateral deltoid and triceps. The load of the shot is asymmetric.
  11. 2022ReplicationLiao et al. 2022 Twelve-Week Lower Trapezius-Centred Muscular Training Regimen in University Archers14 university archers, seven per group and not randomised: twelve weeks halve the upper-to-lower trapezius ratio on the drawing side, from 2.2 to 1.1, with a measure whose coefficient of variation is 60%, and the score rises from 628 to 639 without pulling significantly away from the control group.
  12. 2025ContradictionSarı et al. 2025 Physical characteristics of the pulling and stabilization arm in archers, examination of posture and injury risk13 young right-handed Turkish archers: the drawing side is stronger, a little in the large movements (d from 0.2 to 0.6) and a lot in the finger pinches (d up to 1.74), while the side plank is the same on both sides. The first supporting study.
  13. 2025ReplicationLau et al. 2025 Comparison of Handgrip and Upper Body Strength between Sedentary Individuals and Archers20 young Malaysian archers against 20 sedentary peers: the grip gap between the hands is 6 kg in the archers and 1.3 in the sedentary group, but it was not tested.
  14. 2025ReplicationDar et al. 2025 Abdominal and Multifidus Muscle Morphology and Function, Trunk Clinical Tests, and Symmetry in Young Elite Archery AthletesUltrasound in 15 young elite Israeli archers: multifidus, transversus abdominis and internal oblique have the same thickness on the dominant and the other side, at rest and during contraction.
  15. 2025ExtensionPukhov 2025 Manifestation of asymmetry in muscle activity during the execution of shots from a recurve bowElectromyography of the trunk and girdles in 5 elite Russian recurve archers: the load of the shot is asymmetric in the trunk too, with pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi and upper trapezius more active on the bow side.
  16. 2025ExtensionFan et al. 2025 Associations of Scoring Accuracy with Postural Stability and Strength Measures in Archers on a Standard Archery Site37 pre-elite Taiwanese archers: horizontal abductors stronger in recurve than in compound archers on both sides, 19.0 against 15.4 kgf on the string side and 19.1 against 15.4 on the bow side, with a recurve group that was heavier and had more men.
  17. 2025ExtensionArfiansyah et al. 2025 The effect of bow training on increasing upper limb muscles in adolescent archery athletes17 Indonesian beginners: the string arm has more muscle mass than the bow arm before they start, and over eight weeks the gap grows in the girls and not in the boys.
  18. 2026ReviewSubramaniam et al. 2026 Systematic Review of Exercise Interventions in Archery: Injury Management and Performance OutcomesA systematic review reports 36 beginners followed for twelve weeks: the precision of an arm movement improves to a similar extent on both sides, and the difference between the dominant and non-dominant limb stays where it was.

Studies in this line

Related claims

Claims in the registry with at least one of these studies among their evidence.

81 claims · 91% with evidence on archers

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Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). Shooting and asymmetry: fifty years of measurements. In Research. matteocampagna.com. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/research/shooting-asymmetries

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_enresearchshootingasymmetries,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {Shooting and asymmetry: fifty years of measurements},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Research, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/research/shooting-asymmetries},
  note = {accessed 2026-10-16}
}