TY  - JOUR
A1  - Peitz, Matti
A1  - Behringer, Michael
A1  - Granacher, Urs
T1  - A systematic review on the effects of resistance and plyometric training on physical fitness in youth
T2  - PlOS ONE
N2  - Introduction

To date, several meta-analyses clearly demonstrated that resistance and plyometric training are effective to improve physical fitness in children and adolescents. However, a methodological limitation of meta-analyses is that they synthesize results from different studies and hence ignore important differences across studies (i.e., mixing apples and oranges). Therefore, we aimed at examining comparative intervention studies that assessed the effects of age, sex, maturation, and resistance or plyometric training descriptors (e.g., training intensity, volume etc.) on measures of physical fitness while holding other variables constant.

Methods

To identify relevant studies, we systematically searched multiple electronic databases (e.g., PubMed) from inception to March 2018. We included resistance and plyometric training studies in healthy young athletes and non-athletes aged 6 to 18 years that investigated the effects of moderator variables (e.g., age, maturity, sex, etc.) on components of physical fitness (i.e., muscle strength and power).

Results

Our systematic literature search revealed a total of 75 eligible resistance and plyometric training studies, including 5,138 participants. Mean duration of resistance and plyometric training programs amounted to 8.9 ± 3.6 weeks and 7.1±1.4 weeks, respectively. Our findings showed that maturation affects plyometric and resistance training outcomes differently, with the former eliciting greater adaptations pre-peak height velocity (PHV) and the latter around- and post-PHV. Sex has no major impact on resistance training related outcomes (e.g., maximal strength, 10 repetition maximum). In terms of plyometric training, around-PHV boys appear to respond with larger performance improvements (e.g., jump height, jump distance) compared with girls. Different types of resistance training (e.g., body weight, free weights) are effective in improving measures of muscle strength (e.g., maximum voluntary contraction) in untrained children and adolescents. Effects of plyometric training in untrained youth primarily follow the principle of training specificity. Despite the fact that only 6 out of 75 comparative studies investigated resistance or plyometric training in trained individuals, positive effects were reported in all 6 studies (e.g., maximum strength and vertical jump height, respectively).

Conclusions

The present review article identified research gaps (e.g., training descriptors, modern alternative training modalities) that should be addressed in future comparative studies.
KW  - young soccer players
KW  - randomized controlled-trial
KW  - school baseball players
KW  - whole-body vibratoin
KW  - rugby league players
KW  - of-direction speed
KW  - endurance performance
KW  - muscular strength
KW  - motor-performance
Y1  - 2018
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/42219
SN  - 1932-6203
VL  - 13
IS  - 10
PB  - Public Library of Science
CY  - San Francisco
ER  -