Balance programme for archers: Wibowo 2022 study

No archer did this training. The study takes a six-week balance programme, written by the authors from books and articles, and puts it to seven experts for judgement using the Delphi technique, on a scale of one to five, until consensus. What is judged is the dosage: intensity, repetitions, frequency, rhythm, sets, intervals, recovery and how easy the exercises are to perform.

Across the eight indicators the content validity ratio (CVR) runs from 0.71 to 1.00: on four indicators the seven experts are unanimous, and on the other four one of the seven does not consider the indicator essential. Agreement between the judges, on the other hand, is low: the intraclass correlation coefficient is 0.119 for a single measure, with a confidence interval of 0.038 to 0.513, and 0.486 for the average measure, 0.340 to 0.881, with p = 0.086. The authors also report a Cronbach's alpha, but the value changes depending on where you read it: 0.754 in the abstract, 0.486 in the table and in the discussion.

The authors conclude that the programme has good content validity and good reliability and can be used with archers at beginner or early intermediate level, while adding that a six-week field trial is needed first.

The work proceeds in four steps: reading books, e-books and articles to build the programme; assessment of the programme by seven experts using the Delphi technique; calculation of content validity with Lawshe's CVR formula; calculation of reliability with Cronbach's alpha and the intraclass correlation coefficient in SPSS 23. The experts are strength and conditioning specialists and nationally licensed archery coaches, chosen for their qualifications, their knowledge of training programmes and their competitive experience.

The programme being judged is described precisely enough to be read. It runs six weeks, eighteen sessions, three times a week. After five to ten minutes of jogging and stretching, the first block is a strength and stability circuit: triceps down dog, forearm plank, single-arm dumbbell row on each side, sit-ups, plank shoulder taps, quadruped with opposite arm and leg extension, dumbbell side raises. Repetitions run from eight to fifteen, sets from two to six, intensity low to medium, the interval is ten seconds and full recovery runs from three to five minutes.

The second block is on a wobble board: standing on two feet rocking forwards and back, side to side and in circles, then on one foot, then on two feet holding the bow, and finally drawing and holding the bow, all on the board. Working times run from five to twenty seconds, intervals from five to ten seconds, recovery from one to three minutes. It closes with five to seven minutes of cool-down and review. The equipment listed is mats, one to two kilogram dumbbells, a wobble board and a training partner.

The source does not say whether the programme works, because nobody carried it out: it says that seven experts consider it well written. And there is already a problem in the agreement figures. The authors quote the 0.75 threshold for the intraclass correlation coefficient and then conclude that the data are reliable with values of 0.119 and 0.486, which sit below the threshold they have just quoted, and with p = 0.086. In the discussion Cronbach's alpha is presented as "0.486 greater than 0.6", a comparison that does not hold, while the abstract gives 0.754 for the same quantity.

The count of experts also changes from page to page: the abstract says five strength and conditioning specialists and two archery coaches, the methods section two specialists and five coaches. The number of Delphi rounds is not stated, and there is no account of how consensus was judged to have been reached. On content validity the formula used is Lawshe's, whose tables require a critical value close to 0.99 with seven judges: by the formula's own criterion the four indicators at 0.71 would not pass, whereas the authors adopt the looser rule of any value greater than zero.

Little is known about how the programme was built: the sources read are not listed individually and no stated criterion governs the choice of exercises. The link between balance and score, which appears in the introduction, is taken from other studies. It is the authors themselves who write that a six-week trial is needed before the programme is used with athletes. The journal, moreover, is one on which the registry keeps its editorial caution.

For someone who shoots, this source is not evidence about balance: it is a document about how a programme is written. What is useful in it is the description, detailed and readable, of what a group of Indonesian coaches considers a sensible load for balance work with a beginner archer, including the most sport-specific part, holding and then drawing the bow while standing on a wobble board.

That seven experts find the dosage coherent does not show that balance improves, still less that scores rise. In the registry the source documents a widespread practice and keeps the question open, rather than supporting a claim about an effect.