Objective To explore the knowledge base, focus and frontier trends of exercise intervention therapy for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Methods A total of 1 153 articles related to exercise intervention therapy for ADHD included in the Web of Science database from 1996 to 2022 were used for science-based analysis and visualization analysis by CiteSpace 6.2.R2 software. Results There was an overall upward trend in the number of publications and frequency of citations for the research on exercise intervention therapy for ADHD from 1996 to 2022. Interdisciplinary integration was an important disciplinary representation of this research field, mainly involving psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, pediatrics, sports science, etc. The research of ADHD exercise intervention therapy focused on improving the mental function, motor function and social function of children with ADHD, and the evolution of frontier topics mainly focused on the incentive mechanism of ADHD, physiological and biochemical mechanism of exercise intervention, and functional effect of exercise intervention. Conclusion Research on exercise intervention therapy for ADHD is centered on 2 core themes, namely, exercise intervention mechanism and the intervention effect; and the research is focused on mental function, motor function and social function, presenting a trend of diversification of topics, refinement of content, and in-depth study of themes.