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For Paralympic wheelchair archers, a dedicated conditioning programme raises strength and competition results

2 studies · 38 archers measured

ForContextAgainst20202022202420262023, for, n = 202023, context, n = 202021, context, n = 18
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.

Little is known yet, and almost all of it comes from one study. In 2021 a comparison of nine Paralympic wheelchair archers describes the starting point: the shoulder external rotators are the weakest muscle group and the elbow flexors the strongest, grip strength varies enormously from one athlete to the next, and shoulders and elbows are much weaker than in wheelchair basketball players. In 2023 twenty Paralympic wheelchair archers of national and international level are split into two groups of ten, not at random: twelve weeks of specific exercises, more arrows and recovery with massage take the drawing hand's grip from 37.4 to 45.5 kG, improve the ability to reproduce a requested force, and eight of the top ten finishers in the 18-metre test competition come from the trained group. The scores from that competition are not published and the programme mixes three different things, so the effect belongs to the package and not to the exercises alone. It is a single supporting study, small and not randomised.

Also phrased as: "conditioning for wheelchair archers"; "strength training in para archery"; "paralympic archers and the gym"; "specific exercises for archers with a disability"

In practice

The usual line is that wheelchair archers should train shoulders and trunk above all, because without the support of the legs the whole work of the shot goes through them.

Evidence

Status history

  1. 2021 Not studied Of the wheelchair archer's body only the profile is known. In nine Paralympic archers compared with nine wheelchair basketball players, the shoulder external rotators are the weakest group and the elbow flexors the strongest, shoulders and elbows are much weaker than the basketball players' (6.8 against 21.6 in the right external rotators, p < 0.001), and grip strength varies from athlete to athlete with a standard deviation of two thirds of the mean. Nobody has yet tried training them and measuring what changes: not studied.
  2. 2023 Reported The first study that trains them: twenty Paralympic wheelchair archers of national and international level, split into two groups of ten without randomisation, twelve weeks and forty-eight sessions of specific exercises, more arrows and recovery with massage. In the trained group the drawing hand's grip rises from 37.4 to 45.5 kG and the bow hand's by 5.2, while in the control group it does not grow; heart rate on the shooting line holds steady instead of rising, and eight of the top ten finishers in the test competition come from the trained group. A single study, not randomised and without competition scores: reported.

Related

Research lines

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

See the programme
Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). For Paralympic wheelchair archers, a dedicated conditioning programme raises strength and competition results (Version 2). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/conditioning-paralympic-archers

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_preparazionearcieriparalimpici,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {For Paralympic wheelchair archers, a dedicated conditioning programme raises strength and competition results},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/physical-training/conditioning-paralympic-archers},
  note = {Version 2; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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