Elsevier

Physical Therapy in Sport

Volume 29, January 2018, Pages 51-60
Physical Therapy in Sport

Literature Review
Effect of upper body plyometric training on physical performance in healthy individuals: A systematic review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ptsp.2017.11.005Get rights and content

Highlights

  • UBPT improves ball throwing velocity, distance and power (effect size 0.3–1.5).

  • Improvement of muscle strength with UBPT is questionable (effect size 0.1).

  • Exercise the results with caution due to only few studies involved.

Abstract

Objective

To determine the impact of upper body plyometric training (UBPT) on physical performance parameters such as strength, ball throwing speed, ball throw distance and power in healthy individuals.

Methods

PubMed, Scopus, ResearchGate and ERIC databases were searched up to August 2017. Selection of articles was done if they described the outcomes of an upper body plyometric exercise intervention; included measures of strength, ball throwing speed, ball throw distance, or power; included healthy individuals; used a randomized control trial; and had full text available in English language. The exclusion criteria were unpublished research work and clubbing of UBPT with some other type(s) of training apart from routine sports training. PEDro scale was used to rate the quality of studies eligible for this review.

Results

Initially 264 records were identified and out of them only 11 articles met the eligibility criteria and were selected (PEDro score = 4 to 6). Though large to very small effects observed in improving ball throwing velocity, ball throwing distance, power and strength of upper limb muscles after UBPT, the results should be implemented with caution.

Conclusion

Inconclusive results obtained preclude any strong conclusion regarding the efficacy of UBPT on physical performance in healthy individuals.

Introduction

Many sports and occupational activities require explosive movements of the upper extremities (Koch, Riemann, & Davies, 2012). Improvement in parameters of strength and power has been observed if plyometric exercises are performed regularly (Faigenbaum et al., 2007). Previously known by different names such as the shock method and jump training, plyometric training aims to improve power production by combining strength and speed (Schulte-Edelmann, Davies, Kernozek, & Gerberding, 2005). The term “plyometric” is a combination of two greek words, “plio” which means “more” and “metric” which means “to measure” (Wilk et al., 1993). Plyometric exercises involve stretch shortening cycles (SSCs) to powerfully contract the muscles after rapidly stretching the same muscles (Pezzullo, Karas, & Irrgang, 1995). The muscle group is first eccentrically loaded to store elastic energy in the muscles and then contracted concentrically to produce increased force in one SSC (Arazi, Asadi, Nasehi, & Delpasand, 2012). The two phases eccentric and concentric are separated by a brief rest period known as the amortization phase (Swanik et al., 2002). Significance of amortisation phase lies in the fact that lesser the duration of this phase, greater is the utilization of elastic energy stored in the muscles leading to increased work output (Heiderscheit, McLean, & Davies, 1996).

While there is abundance of researches based on lower body plyometric training (Behrens et al., 2014, Cadore et al., 2013, Macaluso et al., 2012, Markovic and Mikulic, 2010, Moore et al., 2012) that majorly includes jumping (Jastrzebski et al., 2014, Vossen et al., 2000) and hopping (De Villarreal et al., 2010, Potteiger et al., 1999), training adaptations incurred due to upper body plyometric training (UBPT) have been studied by very few researchers in the past (Carter et al., 2007, Heiderscheit et al., 1996, Koch et al., 2012, Newton and McEvoy, 1994, Schulte-Edelmann et al., 2005, Swanik et al., 2002, Vossen et al., 2000). Upper limb plyometric exercises include open kinetic chain medicine ball exercises such as chest passes and ball throws, and closed kinetic chain exercises such as plyometric push-ups (Hinshaw, Stephenson, Sha, & Dai, 2017), clap push ups and medicine ball push ups (Koch et al., 2012). It has been proposed that both upper body and lower body plyometric training programs would produce similar results (Carter et al., 2007, Schulte-Edelmann et al., 2005). Presently, there is dearth of studies those have examined the impact of purely upper body plyometric exercise on upper body performance. It is clear that more and more researches are needed to determine the effect of such type of training on physical performance parameters. The purpose of this review was to determine the impact of UBPT on physical performance parameters such as strength, ball throwing speed, ball throw distance and power in healthy individuals.

Section snippets

Inclusion criteria

To be a part of this systematic review research articles had to meet the following inclusion criteria (a) describe the outcomes of an upper body plyometric exercise intervention; (b) include measures of strength, ball throwing speed, ball throw distance, or power; (c) include healthy individuals; (d) use a randomized control trial; and (e) have full text available in English language.

Exclusion criteria

(a) Unpublished research studies, conference papers, dissertations or theses (since these are not peer reviewed

Study selection

The process of study selection in accordance with PRISMA is depicted in Fig. 1. Initially 264 records were found having 149 duplicates. Upon reading the abstracts, 84 articles did not meet the eligibility criteria and were rejected. While screening the records, 7 conference papers, 2 dissertations/theses, 3 unpublished research studies and 2 studies that had chosen diseased individuals as their study population were excluded. Also, 27 studies did not describe outcomes of UBPT, 29 studies were

Discussion

This is the first systematic review conducted to determine the impact of UBPT on physical performance parameters such as strength, ball throwing speed, ball throw distance and power in healthy individuals. Eleven randomised controlled trials that were included in this review were rated as having fair to good methodological quality (McCrary et al., 2015). The results suggest that UBPT has a large effect on improving ball throwing velocity and moderate effect on improving ball throwing distance

Conclusion

With extensive search only eleven studies turned up to be eligible for the review and out of eleven, eight studies showed effectiveness on improving ball throwing velocity, ball throwing distance and power of upper limb muscles, two studies demonstrated ineffectiveness of upper body plyometric training and one study did not report between the group analysis. Our review highlights the fact that future good quality randomised control trials are required to confirm our findings and to obtain

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