Sedano Campo S, Vaeyens R, Philippaerts RM, Redondo JC, de Benito AM, Cuadrado G.

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Purpose: To examine how explosive strength, kicking speed and body composition are affected by a 12-week plyometric training program in elite female soccer players. The hypothesis was that this program would increase the jumping ability and kicking speed and that these gains could be maintained by means of regular soccer practice.

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Conclusions: A 12-week plyometric program can improve explosive strength in female soccer players and that these improvements can be transferred to soccer kick performance in terms of ball speed. However, players need time to transfer these improvements in strength to the specific task. Regular soccer training can maintain the improvements from a plyometric training program for several weeks.

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IN PLAIN ENGLISH: Naturally, doing plyometric jumping and bounding drills will make one better at jumping and bounding due to the principle of specificity. This supposed “transfer’ from a plyometric program to soccer skills – which took time - is simply the fact that one had to start kicking a soccer ball again to become familiar with that skill.