Does Taping Have an Immediate Effect on Shooting the Target?

Abstract

In overhead shooting athletes may have increased activity of the upper trapezius and inhibition of other shoulder muscles active during upper extremity elevation. In this study, we aimed to increase target retention and shoulder proprioception sense accuracy by taping in a way that would activate the lower trapezius muscle in elite adolescent archers. Our participants were 43 elite young athletes, aged 11–14 years, from the Archers Foundation Sports Club. We gathered athletes' sociodemographic information (age, height, weight, gender, the time they were engaged in archery, and other sports they were involved in), and we assessed their posture via the New York Posture Scale (NYPS) before taping. We evaluated them for the presence of scapular asymmetry using the Lateral Scapular Slide Test (LSST) and assessed their proprioception with the active displacement test and their target-reaching performances with the Archery Shooting Score (ASS). Since testing and scoring with the ASS is different for 11–12 and 13–14 age groups, we divided this sample into two different age groups for all analyses. There were significant changes in ASS and proprioception in both age groups, with medium to large effect sizes. There were between intragroup pre- and post-taping changes in classification according to the presence of scapular asymmetry, and there were significant changes in the archery shooting score and proprioception in both groups, with medium to large effect sizes (p < 0.05). Thus, taping applied to the lower part of the trapezius had a large to medium effect on proprioception and shooting accuracy improvement in these young archers.