The effects of plyometric training on adolescent sports performance: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Plyometric training (PT) is a popular method of improving explosive power, speed, and agility in adolescent athletes. Nevertheless, earlier reviews have been mainly based on individual performance domains, individual sports or general youth groups. It is therefore not clear whether the effects of PT differ based on sex, type of sport, frequency of training or duration of intervention. This meta-analysis and systematic review investigated the impact of PT on jumping, sprinting, and agility performance in adolescents.

PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase were searched from database inception to 1 January 2025, with an updated search on 30 January 2026. Randomized controlled trials that included healthy adolescents aged 10-19 years were included. Conventional random-effects models were used to pool the effects of PT on jumping, sprinting, and agility performance as standardized mean differences (SMDs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). To account for multiple effect sizes contributed by the same study, dependency-adjusted analyses were additionally conducted using three-level random-effects models with CR2 cluster-robust variance estimation.

A total of 63 studies were included. Conventional random-effects analyses showed that PT significantly improved jump performance (SMD = 0.648, 95% CI [0.523-0.772]; P < 0.001), sprint performance (SMD = -0.496, 95% CI [-0.609 to -0.383]; P < 0.001), and agility performance (SMD = -0.659, 95% CI [-0.851 to -0.467]; P < 0.001). Dependency-adjusted analyses confirmed the robustness of these findings for jump performance (SMD = 0.613, 95% CI [0.447-0.779]; P < 0.001), sprint performance (SMD = -0.414, 95% CI [-0.583 to -0.245]; P < 0.001), and agility performance (SMD = -0.595, 95% CI [-0.796 to -0.394]; P < 0.001). Benefits were more consistent with longer intervention durations, whereas sex- and sport-specific subgroup findings remained exploratory because of small subgroup sizes and heterogeneity.

PT seems to be effective in enhancing jumping, sprinting, and agility performance among adolescents, especially when the interventions are continued at least 10 weeks. However, between-study heterogeneity, testing protocol variability, and small sample sizes in some sex- and sport-specific studies limit the generalizability of subgroup results. Future randomized controlled trials should use standardized outcome measures, report training dose and adherence in detail, and have a higher proportion of female participants. PROSPERO registration: CRD42024627316.