Compound-set training for archers: Nasrulloh 2022

Fifteen archers from the university team in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, students aged 17 to 22, spent eight weeks lifting weights using compound sets: two exercises back to back for the same muscle group, using different equipment and with no break when switching. Loads ranged from 60 to 80% of one-repetition maximum, with 3 or 4 sets of 15 to 25 repetitions and 1 to 2 minutes' rest between sets.

Mean grip strength went from 82.72 to 111.67, in a unit the paper does not state; the muscular endurance score went from 7.06 to 11.26. Both differences are significant (p < 0.001). Against the reference tables, before the programme 11 of the 15 archers were in the lowest band for strength, and afterwards 8 were in the good band and 2 in the excellent one; for endurance the picture moves from 8 archers in the fair band to 5 in the excellent band and 7 in the good one. Shooting score was not measured.

The design is a single group measured once before and once after: what the paper calls the control group is the same group at the first test. The archers were chosen from members who had been training for at least two months and were willing to take part. Strength was measured with a hand grip test; endurance with Hoeger's battery, which adds up the results of bench jumps, bent-leg curl-ups, abdominal crunches and, depending on sex, modified dips for men and modified push-ups for women. The values were then placed in five bands, from poor to excellent. Before and after were compared with a t-test. The paper does not list the exercises in the programme or say how many sessions a week there were or how long they lasted.

Without a comparison group there is no way to tell how much of the improvement comes from the compound set method and how much from simply lifting weights, the time of season or familiarity with the tests: people who repeat a test battery after two months usually do better anyway. Nearly everyone started in the lowest strength band, and in people with little training any weights programme pushes these numbers up. There is also no comparison with other weight training methods, the only way to say anything about compound sets as such.

The data are hard to read. A mean grip of 82.72 is not plausible in kilograms for one hand in student archers, and the unit is not stated; it may be the sum of both hands, but the text does not say so. The t value for endurance is 12.860 in the table and 13.396 in the text and abstract; the highest endurance value before the programme is 10 in the table and 8 in the text. The paper does not say how many were men and how many women, what bows they shot or which exercises made up the programme, which therefore cannot be repeated. Arm strength is represented by grip alone.

The study shows what you would expect from a high-repetition weights programme in university archers who started out with little training: after two months the grip and muscular endurance tests improve. It does not say whether the compound set method works better than training with traditional sets, and it says nothing about shooting, because score was not measured.

For an archer who does no physical preparation, it suggests that general strength and endurance rise quickly. Whether that helps performance in competition, as the authors write in their conclusions, remains an assumption the study does not test.