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Standard best practice for the treatment of venous leg ulcers (VLUs) is compression bandaging of the lower leg to reduce hydrostatic pressure. There is considerable variation in reported healing rates when using this gold‐standard approach; therefore, a systematic and robust evaluation of other interventions is required. Exercise interventions, in addition to standard compression therapy, could improve wound‐healing time and prevent their recurrence. We have conducted a systematic review to examine the effects of exercise on wound characteristics, including time to heal, size and recurrence, pain, quality of life, adverse events, and economic outcomes. This review was registered with PROSPERO 2016:CRD42016046407. A systematic search of Ovid Medline, Ovid EMBASE, Ovid CINAHL, The Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and PEDro was conducted on January 30, 2017, for randomised control …