The effect of flywheel training on strength and physical capacities in sporting and healthy populations: An umbrella review

Abstract

The aim of this umbrella review was to provide a detailed summary of how flywheel training enhances strength and physical capacities in healthy and athletic populations. The eleven reviews included were analyzed for methodological quality according to the Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Review 2 (AMSTAR 2) and the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) criteria. Two were systematic reviews, six were systematic reviews with meta-analyses and three were narrative reviews. Although the included reviews support use of flywheel training with athletic and healthy populations, the umbrella review highlights disparity in methodological quality and over-reporting of studies (38 studies were included overall). Flywheel post-activation performance enhancement protocols can effectively enhance strength and physical capacities acutely with athletes and healthy populations. All relevant reviews support flywheel training as a valid alternative to traditional resistance training for enhancing muscular strength, power, and jump performance with untrained and trained populations alike. Similarly, reviews included report flywheel training enhances change of direction performance—although conclusions are based on a limited number of investigations. However, the reviews investigating the effect of flywheel training on sprint performance highlight some inconsistency in attained improvements with elite athletes (e.g., soccer players). To optimize training outcomes, it is recommended practitioners individualize (i.e., create inertia-power or inertia-velocity profiles) and periodize flywheel training using the latest guidelines. This umbrella review provides an analysis of the literature’s strengths and limitations, creating a clear scope for future investigations.

Considerations to Optimize Strength and Muscle Mass Gains Through Flywheel Resistance Devices: A Narrative Review

“…Flywheel resistance training is a valid strategy to improve force and power levels and to obtain hypertrophy responses in healthy and active populations (18). However, differences between flywheel and traditional resistance training programs have not been clearly established.…”

“…The studies reported in this review have mainly involved male participants; however, the volume of literature pertaining to flywheel training studies using female populations is scarce (18,42). Because of the differences between male and female subjects in terms of physical fitness and responses to resistance training programs exist (e.g., because of different hormonal levels), further analysis to differentiate responses to flywheel and traditional resistance programs between sexes is necessary.…”

“…Flywheel resistance devices were conceived to facilitate resistance training in a gravity-independent scenario (25) to alleviate this problem. The application of flywheel training as a resistance training method has since gained popularity in athletic and nonathletic populations, obtaining promising results in both sports performance and health realms (18,41).…”

Measuring Interlimb Asymmetry for Strength and Power: A Brief Review of Assessment Methods, Data Analysis, Current Evidence, and Practical Recommendations

“…Meanwhile, weekly lateral squat training sessions over 10 weeks improved jump height asymmetry and CMJ performance (31). However, the present literature is limited to youth male athletes and may not appropriately represent the effects of flywheel training on interlimb asymmetries in elite athletes or female populations (28). In addition, the training implemented may not have been ideal for achieving eccentric overload (43), which is an important feature of flywheel training (4).…”

Use of concentric linear velocity to monitor flywheel exercise load

“…Flywheel training has been shown changes related to sports performance optimization (Maroto-Izquierdo et al, 2017;Beato et al, 2019;Maroto-Izquierdo and McBride, 2022) and rehabilitation (Wonders, 2019;Maroto-Izquierdo and Nosaka, 2022), injury prevention (Tesch et al, 2017;Monajati et al, 2018), and functional capacity improvements (Tesch et al, 2017;Kowalchuk and Butcher, 2019). Indeed, these brief episodes of eccentric overload induced by flywheel devices and performed at high intensity are associated with greater improvements in both concentric and eccentric force, muscle mechanical power and muscle hypertrophy in healthy and welltrained subjects when compared to those induced by traditional training with free weights and weight-stack machines (Maroto-Izquierdo et al, 2017;de Keijzer et al, 2022). Additional benefits of using a flywheel device is its versatility, including the ability to perform a variety of exercises in different movement planes and force vectors (Gonzalo-Skok et al, 2017), as well as its portability (Suchomel et al, 2019).…”