Effects of Upper-Body Plyometric Training on Physical Fitness in Healthy Youth and Young Adult Participants: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis

Upper-body plyometric training can be effective at improving maximal strength, medicine ball throwing performance, sport-specific throwing performance, and muscle volume in healthy youth and young adult participants.An effective dose of a progressive overload UBPT programme may involve: a minimal duration of 4 weeks, 2–4 sessions/week, 1–6 exercises/session, 1–10 sets per exercise, a mean of ~ 12 repetitions/set (range 3–30; lower range usually with maximal effort-intensity), and an inter-set and inter-session rest of 15–240 s and 48–96 h, respectively.The findings of this meta-analysis were derived from 30 articles with low risk of bias (good methodological quality), low study heterogeneity, and low to very low certainty of evidence (GRADE), encompassing a total of 1,412 participants ranging from 7.3 to 27.2 years of age.