An Evidence-Based Guide for Practitioners
Introduction: Why Outcome Measures Are No Longer Enough
The countermovement jump (CMJ) has become one of the most widely used assessments in elite football. From Premier League academies to international teams, athletes regularly step onto force plates before training, following matches, during rehabilitation and throughout return-to-performance programmes. In less than thirty seconds, practitioners can generate a wealth of information describing an athlete’s neuromuscular status, force production capabilities and movement strategy. Yet despite widespread adoption of force plate technology, a fundamental question remains: are practitioners making the best use of the information available?
Historically, jump testing was remarkably simple. Athletes performed a maximal vertical jump and practitioners recorded a single outcome measure, typically jump height. Whether assessed using a Vertec, jump mat or optical timing system, higher was considered better. Improvements in jump height were interpreted as evidence of enhanced lower-body power, while reductions were often attributed to fatigue or detraining. While this approach provided a useful measure of performance, it revealed remarkably little about how that performance was achieved.
Two athletes can produce identical jump heights despite demonstrating markedly different neuromuscular strategies. One athlete may generate exceptionally high eccentric forces before rapidly transitioning into propulsion, while another achieves the same outcome through a longer movement duration and greater reliance on concentric force production. From an outcome perspective, the performances appear identical. From a biomechanical perspective, they represent two fundamentally different movement solutions. This distinction lies at the heart of contemporary force plate assessment.
Rather than viewing the CMJ solely as a measure of explosive performance, modern practitioners increasingly recognise it as an assessment of movement strategy. The force-time curve provides insight into the interaction between strength, power, coordination and neuromuscular control, allowing practitioners to move beyond simple outcome measures towards understanding the mechanisms underpinning performance.
This evolution reflects broader changes within sports science. Across performance monitoring, there has been a shift away from isolated performance outcomes towards understanding the processes responsible for producing those outcomes. In football, GPS technology no longer simply reports total distance covered; practitioners examine high-speed running profiles, acceleration exposure and positional demands. Similarly, strength assessment has progressed beyond one-repetition maximum testing to include rate of force development, velocity-based training and isometric profiling. Force plate analysis represents a continuation of this movement towards more detailed, mechanistic assessment. Perhaps no test demonstrates this evolution more clearly than the CMJ.
Modern force plate systems routinely calculate well over one hundred variables from a single jump. These include measures relating to force production, impulse, velocity, power, eccentric braking characteristics, reactive strength, asymmetry, movement timing and landing mechanics. Such advances have undoubtedly expanded the information available to practitioners. However, they have also introduced a new challenge: distinguishing meaningful information from unnecessary complexity. The ability to calculate a variable does not necessarily justify its routine use.
Recent research has highlighted considerable differences in the reliability and practical utility of commonly reported CMJ metrics. While variables such as jump height, contraction time, impulse and peak force generally demonstrate acceptable reliability, others—including several measures of rate of force development (RFD)—exhibit substantially greater variability, limiting their usefulness for monitoring individual athletes over time (Merrigan et al., 2024). This distinction is critical. In applied settings, practitioners are not interested in collecting the greatest possible quantity of data; they seek measurements capable of detecting genuine physiological change amidst the inherent variability of human performance. The challenge therefore shifts from data collection to data interpretation.
This is particularly important within elite football, where practitioners operate in highly complex environments characterised by congested fixture schedules, frequent travel, variable training loads and continual pressure to optimise performance while minimising injury risk. Under these conditions, monitoring tools must provide information that is not only scientifically valid but also practically actionable. A metric that demonstrates excellent reliability but fails to influence decision-making offers little applied value. Equally, a theoretically attractive variable becomes difficult to justify if its day-to-day variability exceeds the magnitude of the physiological changes practitioners hope to detect.
Consequently, the role of force plate testing has evolved considerably over the past decade. Rather than functioning as isolated performance tests conducted periodically throughout the season, CMJs are increasingly embedded within integrated athlete monitoring systems. Data derived from force plates are interpreted alongside GPS metrics, internal training load, wellness questionnaires, strength assessments, clinical examination and practitioner observation to develop a more comprehensive understanding of athlete readiness. In this context, force plate testing becomes less about identifying a single “good” or “bad” jump and more about contributing objective information to a broader decision-making framework.
Importantly, this approach recognises that no single metric can adequately describe an athlete’s physical state. Neuromuscular performance is multifactorial, influenced by strength, fatigue, motivation, movement competency, injury status and training history. The value of force plate technology therefore lies not in producing definitive answers but in providing objective measurements that reduce uncertainty when interpreted within appropriate sporting and clinical contexts.
As force plate technology has become increasingly accessible, the conversation within sports science has gradually shifted. The question is no longer whether force plates should be used in elite football. Their value as reliable tools for assessing neuromuscular function is now well established. Instead, practitioners face a more important question: which variables genuinely matter, and how should they be interpreted to improve athlete performance and support informed decision-making?
The remainder of this review addresses that question. Rather than attempting to discuss every variable generated by modern force plate software, the focus will be on those measures most strongly supported by contemporary evidence and most relevant to practitioners working within elite football. Throughout, emphasis will be placed not simply on what individual metrics represent, but on how they contribute to understanding movement strategy, monitoring adaptation and informing performance, rehabilitation and return-to-play decisions.
References (Part 1)
Cormie, P., McBride, J. M., & McCaulley, G. O. (2009). Power-time, force-time, and velocity-time curve analysis of the countermovement jump: Impact of training. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 23(1), 177–186.
Gathercole, R., Sporer, B., & Stellingwerff, T. (2015). Countermovement jump performance with increased training loads in elite rugby athletes. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 10(1), 27–35.
McMahon, J. J., Suchomel, T. J., Lake, J. P., & Comfort, P. (2018). Understanding the key phases of the countermovement jump force-time curve. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 40(4), 96–106.
Merrigan, J. J., et al. (2024). Reliability and agreement of countermovement jump force-time variables across force plate systems. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
Lake, J. P., Mundy, P. D., & Comfort, P. (2023). Countermovement jump assessment in sport: Current evidence and practical applications. Sports Medicine.