Effects of Plyometric Training on Physical Performance: An Umbrella Review

Sports Medicine - Open (2023) 9:4 Kons et al. Sports Medicine - Open https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-022-00550-8 Open Access SYSTEMATIC REVIEW Effects of Plyometric Training on Physical Performance: An Umbrella Review Rafael L. Kons1* , Lucas B. R. Orssatto2 , Jonathan Ache‑Dias3 , Kevin De Pauw4 , Romain Meeusen4 , Gabriel S. Trajano2 , Juliano Dal Pupo5   and Daniele Detanico5    Abstract Background Plyometric training can be performed through many types of exercises involving the stretch-shortening cycle in lower limbs. In the last decades, a high number of studies have investigated the effects of plyometric training on several outcomes in different populations. Objectives To systematically review, summarize the findings, and access the quality of published meta-analyses investigating the effects of plyometric training on physical performance. Design Systematic umbrella review of meta-analyses. Data Sources Meta-analyses were identified using a systematic literature search in the databases PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, SPORTDiscus, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and Scielo. Eligibility Criteria for Selecting Meta‑analyses Meta-analyses that examined the effects of plyometric training on physical fitness in different populations, age groups, and sex. Results Twenty-nine meta-analyses with moderate-to-high methodological quality were included in this umbrella review. We identified a relevant weakness in the current literature, in which five meta-analyses included control group comparisons, while 24 included pre-to-post-effect sizes. Trivial-to-large effects were found considering the effects of plyometric training on physical performance for healthy individuals, medium-trivial effects for the sports athletes’ groups and medium effects for different sports athletes’ groups, age groups, and physical performance. Conclusion The available evidence indicates that plyometric training improves most related physical fitness param‑ eters and sports performance. However, it is important to outline that most meta-analyses included papers lacking a control condition. As such, the results should be interpreted with caution. PROSPERO number: CRD42020217918. Keywords Vertical jump, Motor actions, Sports performance, Muscle power *Correspondence: Rafael L. Kons 1 Department of Physical Education, Faculty of Education, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Bahia 40110‑100, Brazil 2 School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, QLD, Australia 3 Research Group on Technology, Sport and Rehabilitation, Catarinense Federal Institute - IFC, Araquari, Brazil 4 Human Physiology and Sports Physiotherapy Research Group and Brussels Human Robotics Research Center (BruBotics), Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium 5 Biomechanics Laboratory, Centre of Sports ‑ CDS, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil Key Points 1. The available meta-analyses suggest that plyometric training induces trivial-to-large effects on physical performance for healthy people, and enhanced performance for athletes from different sports (e.g., vertical jump height, sprint time and muscle strength). 2. This umbrella review reveals that most meta-analyses include within-subject designs without control group comparisons. © The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Kons et al. Sports Medicine - Open (2023) 9:4 3. Future original studies should include control groups in their experimental design to support the effects of plyometric training on physical and sports performance. Introduction Plyometric training is broadly used to improve physical performance in many sports activities involving sprinting, jumping and change of direction ability [1–6]. It usually involves exercises that use the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC), in which a lengthening movement (eccentric) is quickly followed by a shortening movement (concentric) [7, 8]. The effective use of the SSC is related to the contributions of different mechanisms, such as the accumulation of elastic energy [7], pre-load [9], increase of the time to muscle activation [10], muscle history dependence (force enhancement) [11], stretch-reflexes [12] and muscle–tendon interactions [13] that facilitate greater mechanical work production in subsequent concentric muscle actions [14, 15]. The term “plyometric” first appeared in the work of the Russian researcher Zaciorski in 1966 [16]. Zaciorski proposed the term plyometric, considering that in these types of exercises involving SSC, the tension expressed by a group of muscle measured externally (“metron”) is higher (“plio”) than the muscle tension expressed when using other procedures, e.g., isometric exercise [16]. Different types of classifications for plyometric exercises have been used in the last seven decades. The first form of classification was proposed by Verkhoshanski [17], in which plyometric exercises were classified as impact (with some additional external load) and non-impact (without additional external load). More recently, plyometric training has been classified as traditional (e.g., jumps in place, standing jumps, multiple hops and jumps, bounds and drop jumps), assisted (when the exercise is assisted by an elastic band, for example) and resisted (when the exercises are performed under varied external conditions like water, sand and additional external loads) [18]. Over the last decades, numerous experimental studies have been suggesting positive effects of plyometric training on physical capacities such as muscle strength, muscle power, explosive strength and even endurance performance [19, 20]) and on performance of sport tasks such as sprint time, change of direction ability and jump performance [19, 21–23]. Changes in the neural and muscle mechanical properties (e.g., musculotendinous stiffness and architecture) [19, 20, 24] are also reported with plyometric training and may explain the improvements in the aforementioned physical capacities. The significant number of publications investigating the effects of plyometric training on physical capacities has grown Pa (...truncated)