Muscle coordination during archery shooting: A comparison of archers with different skill levels

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to compare the muscle coordination of different skill level archers by using the concept of muscle synergies. A total of 28 archers (8 elite, 12 mid-level, and 8 novices) were recruited to participate in this study. Electromyography (EMG) signals were recorded using a 13-channel (Trigno EMG sensor, Delsys Inc., USA) wireless surface EMG system. Fundamental synergies containing time-dependent activation coefficients (motor primitives) and time-invariant muscle weightings (motor modules) were extracted using non-negative matrix factorisation. We observed three fundamental synergies in all groups during archery shooting. The results showed that the centre of activity of the motor primitive of synergy-3 occurred earlier in novice archers than in elite and mid-level archers, which was followed by an increase in the averaged frequency of overlaps. The results also showed a slight difference in the relative muscle contribution of the motor module of synergy-2 and -3 within different groups. These findings revealed that the number of muscle synergies did not depend on the proficiency level; however, more expert archers improved timing management better than less experienced ones. Therefore, we suggest that coaches and athletes focus on optimising the temporal coordination of the follow-through phase.

KEYWORDS:

• Muscle synergy
• archery
• NNMF

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.