MINI REVIEW article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Children and Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1546156
Resistance or power training to enhance lower limb muscle morphology in ambulatory children with cerebral palsy? A focused systematic review with meta-analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China
- 2College of Physical Education, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan Province, China
- 3China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, China
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Background: Early exercise interventions targeting lower limb muscles are critical for enhancing motor development in children with cerebral palsy (CP). While both resistance training, which enhances muscular strength and endurance, and power training, which targets explosive force production and movement velocity, fall under the umbrella of strength training, this focused review synthesizes current evidence on muscle hypertrophy resulting from these two modalities in children with CP. Methods: The Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, and Embase were searched through March 2025. Eligible studies were randomized controlled trials assessing muscle fascicle length or proxy indicators of muscle fiber diameter following resistance or power training in children with CP. A random-effects meta-analysis was performed to calculate Cohen's d comparing strength training with regular physiotherapy.Findings: Eight studies met the inclusion criteria and were systematically reviewed, with five included in the meta-analysis. These five studies reported outcomes from 80 participants in the strength training group and 73 participants in the traditional physiotherapy group. All participants were ambulatory children classified with low to mild levels on the Gross Motor Function Classification System. Resistance training significantly increased muscle fiber diameter (d = 0.82, 95% CI = 0.54 to 1.09), whereas power training did not (d = 0.35, 95% CI = -0.29 to 0.99). Neither training modality produced a significant increase in muscle fascicle length (resistance training: d = 0.19, 95% CI = -0.17 to 0.56; power training: d = 0.37, 95% CI = -0.27 to 1.01).
Keywords: exercise modalities, Fascicle length, muscle hypertrophy, muscle mass, Muscle Volume, Plyometric training, strength training
Received: 17 Dec 2024; Accepted: 23 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Fan, You, Xia and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jizhi You, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, China
Xiang Zhang, College of Physical Education, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, 410081, Hunan Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.