Bibliometric analysis of plyometrics in sport: 40 years of scientific production

Abstract

Introduction. The study of the effects of plyometric training may be related to the incidence of other physical capacities, physical fitness, and sport-specific performance variables, which is why knowledge production has been linked to the study in different populations, sports, and areas of knowledge. Objective. To analyze the scientific work of the effect of plyometric training in sports during the last 40 years (1983-2023), taking into account a bibliometric analysis in the Scopus database. Methodology. The descriptive bibliometric analysis of the scientific production took into consideration the following indicators for each of the documents: 1) type of document; 2) year of publication; 3) principal author; 4) subject area; 5) journal name; 6) number of publications per journal; 7) quartile; 8) H index; 9) SCI 2022 index; 10) citations; 11) average number of citations per published article; 12) institutional affiliation; 13) sports; 14) language; 15; keywords. Likewise, co-occurrence maps were created from the keywords and co-authorship through the VOSviewer program. The following MeSH terms were used to search the documents: "Sports", "Plyometric" and the search equations "Plyometric AND Sport". Results. A total of 820 documents were obtained. The results reflect that the highest production is in research articles (81.09%) and review articles (13.65%). For the publication period, a systematic increase in scientific production is established from 2014 onwards, finding that 2021 was the year of highest production with 104 documents. The author with the highest making is Rodriguez-Campillo (5.97%). Regarding the thematic area, the making is concentrated between Medicine (49%) and Health professions (40%). The journal that has published the most papers and has the highest number of citations (7844) is the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. The journals with the highest number of citations are those with a category of Q1. The University of the Lakes is the institution with the most research, with 49 papers. The sport with the most investigation is running (12.92%) and soccer (12.68%). The prevailing language in scientific production is English (96.09%). Conclusions. Plyometric training is considered an effective means for the development of physical capacities and sport-specific performance. Likewise, the present study reveals the research tendencies of plyometric training according to the authors, institutions, journals, thematic areas, and keywords used during the investigation. In this way, the bibliometric analysis serves as a reference for future studies because it helps to determine research needs. Key Words: sport, plyometric, sports science, evaluation.