Acute and longitudinal effects of weighted vest training on sprint-running performance: a systematic review

ABSTRACT

This systematic review aimed to quantify the acute and longitudinal effects that occur with weighted vests during sprint-running. PubMed, SPORTDiscus, and Web of Science were searched using the Boolean phrases (vest OR trunk) AND (sprint*) AND (resist* OR weight OR load*). From 170 articles retrieved, 11 studies (6 acute, 5 longitudinal) met the inclusion criteria. Vest loads (5–40% body mass) were found to significantly increase acute over-ground times (10–50 m 4.1–16.9%, effect sizes [ES] = 0.93–3.11) through significantly decreased velocity (−2.2% to −17.3%, ES = −0.41 to −3.19), horizontal force (−5.9% to −22.1%, ES = −0.85 to −3.30), maximal power (−4.3% to −35.6%, ES = −0.32 to −3.44), and flight times (−8.3% to −14.6%, ES = −0.88 to −1.03), while increasing contact times (14.7–19.6%, ES = 1.80–3.17). Treadmill sprints were less effected until loads >11% body mass were used. Improvements in velocity (1.2–1.3%, ES = 0.24–0.37) and times (10–50 m 1.2–9.4%, ES = 0.25–3.30) were found in longitudinal studies (5.6–18.9% body mass, 3–7 weeks). Future studies should focus on determining the optimum load and volume to clearly establish the training benefits of this form of resisted sprinting.

KEYWORDS:

• Wearable resistance
• resisted sprints
• kinematics
• kinetics
• specificity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.