BACKGROUND: Prehabilitation is a strategy used aiming to reduce the risk factors and complications of surgery procedures, but there is no consensus on the effectiveness of supervised physical exercise and its optimal prescription during this phase. OBJECTIVES: To determine the effects of exercise prehabilitation on body composition, functional capacity and quality of life in candidates for bariatric surgery. SEARCH METHODS: A search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, SciELO, Scopus, MEDLINE and CINAHL. SELECTION CRITERIA: Only randomized clinical trials that examined the effectiveness of supervised physical exercise were included. The main outcomes were body composition, functional capacity, quality of life and surgical outcomes. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two researchers independently selected the literature, extracted the data and evaluated the risk of bias. A third researcher was consulted when a consensus was not reached. The risk of bias was assessed by the tool recommended by the Cochrane Collaboration, the quality of the evidence by GRADE, and to analyze the effects of prehabilitation on the primary objectives, RevMan software, version 5.3 was used. MAIN RESULTS: The search resulted in 4550 articles, of which 22 met the eligibility criteria, leaving 5 articles selected for this review. One article was assessed as a high bias risk and four as an uncertain risk, which included 139 candidates for bariatric surgery. Most of the studies evaluated the body composition, functional capacity and quality of life; none reported surgical outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Supervised physical exercise has positive effects on the body composition, functional capacity and quality of life; there was no evidence for surgical outcomes, which opens up a field of study for future research of this population.