Hongxiang Huang‡, Amirali Salehi‡, Seyed Houtan Shahidi§Corresponding author: Amirali Salehi ( salehiamirali110@gmail.com ) Academic editor: Michail Michailov © Hongxiang Huang, Amirali Salehi, Seyed Houtan Shahidi. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), which permits to copy and distribute the article for non-commercial purposes, and the original author and source are credited. Adapted content must be distributed under the same license Citation:
Huang H, Salehi A, Shahidi SH (2025) The effects of repeated sprint training on jump, sprint, and change of direction performance in male basketball players. Journal of Applied Sports Sciences 9(2): 135-154. https://doi.org/10.37393/JASS.2025.09.02.10 |  |
Background: Increasing evidence suggests that repeated sprint training (RST) enhances performance in male basketball players, yet findings have not been quantitatively synthesized.
Purpose: To meta-analyze the effects of RST on countermovement jump (CMJ), linear sprint, and change-of-direction (COD) performance versus control.
Methodology: Systematic searches of PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus identified peer-reviewed controlled trials of basketball players with baseline and follow-up measures. A random-effects meta-analysis was performed; study quality was assessed using the PEDro scale. Prespecified moderators were age, program duration, training frequency, inter-sprint recovery, and sprint direction; subgroup analyses explored heterogeneity.
Results: Nine studies (n = 213) met the inclusion criteria. Pooled effects were small-to-moderate: CMJ (ES = 0.39, 95% CI 0.04–0.74; Z = 2.19; p = .03), linear sprint (ES = -0.40, 95% CI -0.75 to -0.06; Z = 2.29; p = .02), and COD (ES = −1.11, 95% CI −1.73 to −0.50; Z = 3.54; p = .0004). Most subgroup differences were not significant (p = .0004–1.00), but in COD performance, the sprint subgroup (ES = −1.02, p = .002) and the COD subgroup (ES = −1.68, p = .02) showed larger effects and reached statistical significance.
Conclusions: RST can improve CMJ and COD in male basketball players, with a borderline improvement in linear sprint speed; the largest gains appear in COD. While most subgroup differences were non-significant, larger improvements in COD were observed in specific sprint and COD subgroups.
Limitations and Consequences: Evidence is limited by few trials, modest samples, and protocol variability, which may constrain generalizability.
Practical Implications: Adult athletes using ≤30-s inter-sprint recovery and <3 weekly sessions may experience larger benefits; coaches can integrate RST accordingly.
Originality: This is a focused quantitative synthesis of RST-induced neuro-muscular adaptations in male basketball players.