Priming Exercises and Their Potential Impact on Speed and Power Performance: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Improving the competitive level of elite athletes is always a considerable challenge for coaches, regardless of the sport discipline or a training phase. From this perspective, researchers and sport scientists continuously seek more effective training methods, capable of inducing acute changes or long-term adaptations in athletes with diverse training backgrounds. Recently, priming exercises have emerged as a promising approach to enhance athletic performance over short periods of time, either before sport-specific training sessions or official competitions. By incorporating different priming protocols into their regular practices—including sets of traditional resistance exercises, ballistic exercises or sprint drills—athletes have consistently achieved significant improvements in their speed and power qualities within time intervals ranging from 2 h to 48 h. This narrative review summarizes and examines the main studies on this topic, while providing practitioners with theoretical perspectives, practical insights, and guidelines for implementing efficient priming protocols in their training routines. In conclusion, priming interventions generally produce positive outcomes, irrespective of the exercise type and athletes’ backgrounds, and may facilitate the transfer of these benefits to certain sport-specific tasks.