Postural Sway And Shooting Accuracy Of Skilled Recurve Archers

Abstract

Postural movements potentially affect aiming stability in archery, thus contributing to chances of inconsistent hits. According to the expertise-novice paradigm, the factor that sets winners apart from ordinary athletes is the former’s ability to control minute changes in their performance. The present study seeks to determine the relationship between postural sway and shooting performance amongst Malaysian skilled recurve archers. Twenty one skilled Malaysian archers participated in this study, where performance level was measured by rank tournaments International Archery Federation (FITA) score. Postural sway was assessed in terms of anterior deviation (positive value) and posterior deviation (negative value) using ZEPHYR Bio-Harness. Postural sway was analysed at the following three phases; (i) setup, (ii) aiming, and (iii) release. Participants shot 12 arrows to a 30-meter target. Data yielded a significant relationship between postural sway and shooting performance. The correlation coefficients between shooting performance and postural sway value for skilled archers ranged between (r = -0.021 to 0.248) with the highest correlation recorded at the release phase, with the lowest at the aiming phase. The setup phase showed the only anterior deviation throughout the test. During the setup and release phases, correlation between postural sway with shooting performance was significantly noted (p < 0.001). Multiple regression analysis showed that postural sway during the setup and release phases were the significant indicators for shooting performance, accounting approximately 17% and 24% of the variances respectively. In sum, the results indicate that reducing postural sway during the release phase can increase shooting performance of skilled archery athletes, thus establishing a significant relationship between the postural sway value with shooting performance of skilled archers.