Effects of Aquatic Training on Performance and Recovery
A 2026 meta-analysis confirms aquatic training's benefits for speed and injury rehab, while flagging limitations in strength and aerobic gains.
A new meta-analysis has found that water-based training can meaningfully improve speed, explosive power, and agility in competitive athletes and help them recover faster from injury. Here is the breakdown.
Aquatic training gets athletes faster, more explosive, and back on the field sooner. A 2026 meta-analysis from Beijing Normal University pooled data from 13 controlled studies and 392 competitive athletes to determine what water-based training actually does for sports performance. The answer: it works, but not for everything.
What They Studied
Researchers from the College of Physical Education and Sports at Beijing Normal University searched the Web of Science and Scopus databases up to February 2025, looking for controlled trials that tested aquatic training on land-based competitive athletes. They screened 1,564 articles, narrowed them down to 13 studies, and analysed the effects of water-based training on six physical qualities: explosive power, speed, agility, strength, aerobic capacity, and balance, plus physical recovery. All included subjects were competitive athletes with a systematic training background, mostly from team sports like football and volleyball.
Methods
The researchers used standardised mean differences (SMDs) to compare results across studies, with effect sizes interpreted using Cohen’s benchmarks: below 0.2 is trivial, 0.2–0.5 is small, 0.5–0.8 is moderate, and above 0.8 is large. A random-effects model was applied where studies showed high variability; otherwise, a fixed-effects model was used. Study quality was assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool across seven dimensions, with most studies rated at moderate risk of bias.
Results
The main findings across the six performance categories: