Intra-Segment Coordination Variability in Road Cyclists during Pedaling at Different Intensities
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Presented study aimed to examine lower extremity intra-segment coordination and variability during pedaling at different intensities in road cyclists.
The authors hypothesized that 1) Segments range of motion increase with increase in pedaling intensity, 2) lower extremity intra-segment coordination change with increase in pedaling intensity and 3) lower extremity intra-segment coordination variability decrease with increase in pedaling intensity. The results highlighted the role of knee extensors and plantar flexors during first and second half of propulsion phase of pedaling, respectively.
All factors are described clearly. However, I have a few comments.
- "Eleven semi-professional road cyclists (age 27.42±5.12 year, mass 64.94±5.19 kg, height 168.67± 3.47 cm) volunteered to participate in this study. All participants were physically active, free from injury at the time of testing and had no history of serious injuries or surgery in their lower extremities within the previous year." - How did the selection and qualification of people for the study group proceed? Please provide the inclusion and exclusion criteria in the research.
- "All protocols were previously approved by Kharazmi University Institutional Review Board" - Please provide the number of the bioethics commission approval.
- "Load increased by 35 W for male participants and 25 W for female participants every three minutes until exhaustion. The pedaling rate was controlled within 90-95 revolutions per minute (RPM), and testing finished when the pedaling rate dropped below 85 RPM. The peak power output (??????) was calculated from the percentage of time (t %) and the power output at the final stage (???????) according to the equation 1. 89 Equation 1: ?????? = ??????? × ?%. " - If the above study protocol has been used before, please provide the reference (according to ...). If not, please specify that is the author's protocol.
- Please add study limitations, practical application of the test results, and conclusions.
- Please correct the graphics (figure 1) to make it clearer.
- "The myoMotion sensors were positioned on the foots, shanks, thighs, and pelvis segments and it was calibrated based on manufacturer instruction (figure 1)." - please describe the location of the sensors. If the position of the above sensors has been used before in other works, please provide the reference (according to ...).
Author Response
Response to Reviewer1 Comments
(Manuscript ID: applsci-1019232)
We would like to thank the reviewers for their constructive reviews and we appreciate their comments on our manuscript. We have addressed all comments below and have revised our manuscript according to the reviewer’s comments. We have highlighted changes to our manuscript in red font.
Point 1: "Eleven semi-professional road cyclists (age 27.42±5.12 year, mass 64.94±5.19 kg, height 168.67± 3.47 cm) volunteered to participate in this study. All participants were physically active, free from injury at the time of testing and had no history of serious injuries or surgery in their lower extremities within the previous year." - How did the selection and qualification of people for the study group proceed? Please provide the inclusion and exclusion criteria in the research.
Response 1: We provided the inclusion and exclusion criteria in the research based on reviewer comment.
Point 2: "All protocols were previously approved by Kharazmi University Institutional Review Board" - Please provide the number of the bioethics commission approval.
Response 2: The Kharazmi institutional Review Board approval for the researches is an internal university ID and it is not submitted to the world bioethics commission approval. However, we added the Kharazmi Institutional Review Board approval ID for this research in the manuscript. This ID is: KH-13600404
Point 3: "Load increased by 35 W for male participants and 25 W for female participants every three minutes until exhaustion. The pedaling rate was controlled within 90-95 revolutions per minute (RPM), and testing finished when the pedaling rate dropped below 85 RPM. The peak power output (??????) was calculated from the percentage of time (t %) and the power output at the final stage (???????) according to the equation 1. 89 Equation 1: ?????? = ??????? × ?%. " - If the above study protocol has been used before, please provide the reference (according to ...). If not, please specify that is the author's protocol.
Response3: This protocol has been used before in researches and I added these references in the main text of manuscript based on reviewer comment.
Point 4: Please add study limitations, practical application of the test results, and conclusions.
Response 4: We provided the study limitation and conclusion in the final paragraph but we did not add it as a headline because the journal of Applied Science writing style does not this headline in its format.
Point 5: Please correct the graphics (figure 1) to make it clearer.
Response 5: The figure 1 replaced with a figure with a better graphics based on reviewer comment.
Point 6: "The myoMotion sensors were positioned on the foots, shanks, thighs, and pelvis segments and it was calibrated based on manufacturer instruction (figure 1)." - please describe the location of the sensors. If the position of the above sensors has been used before in other works, please provide the reference (according to ...).
Response 6: We added a reference that provided the location of sensors based on reviewer comment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper provides a clinical study comparing the lower limb segment coordination and its variability during paddling at different intensities in cyclists. A small group of participants (11 participants) was recruited to conduct this study and draw conclusions based on statistical analysis. I have concerns regarding the formulated hypotheses in this paper and the low number of participants to perform statistical analysis.
It is not clear how the authors formulated the hypotheses presented in the last paragraph of the introduction section. What was the basis of these hypotheses - clinical data, observations?
It is not clear how the authors designed their methods to test each of the mentioned hypotheses. How do the designed methods directly investigate the formulated hypotheses? A clarification on this would certainly improve the readability of the paper.
It appears that the data from only 11 participants were collected in this study. First, is this small number sufficient enough to make the conclusions based on the statistical analysis? Second, how would the statistical analysis and conclusion change if the number of participants becomes large?
Author Response
Response to Reviewer Comments
(Manuscript ID: applsci-1019232)
We would like to thank the reviewers for their constructive reviews and we appreciate their comments on our manuscript. We have addressed all comments below and have revised our manuscript according to the reviewer’s comments. We have highlighted changes to our manuscript in red font.
Point 1: The paper provides a clinical study comparing the lower limb segment coordination and its variability during paddling at different intensities in cyclists. A small group of participants (11 participants) was recruited to conduct this study and draw conclusions based on statistical analysis. I have concerns regarding the formulated hypotheses in this paper and the low number of participants to perform statistical analysis.
It is not clear how the authors formulated the hypotheses presented in the last paragraph of the introduction section. What was the basis of these hypotheses - clinical data, observations?
Response 1: The authors thank the reviewer for this precise comment. We hypothesized that lower extremity segments ROM increase with increasing in intensity, based on the former researches (Holliday et al. 2019). The joints and segments ROM need to be increased at higher pedaling intensities to expand the muscles capability for more powerful pedaling. We hypothesized that lower extremity segments coupling patterns change with increase in pedaling intensity. This is because human body automatically changes joints and segments coupling patterns with change in movement speed and workload to adopt its best situation to apply forces and reduce the probability of injury (Hamill et al. 1999). Moreover, the researchers reported that an increase in movement speed led to a more constrained movement pattern through a reduction in degrees of freedom (variability) (Abbasi et al. 2020, Bailey et al. 2018). Then we hypothesized that the segment coupling variabilities decrease with increasing intensity.
Point 2: It is not clear how the authors designed their methods to test each of the mentioned hypotheses. How do the designed methods directly investigate the formulated hypotheses? A clarification on this would certainly improve the readability of the paper.
Response 2: We classified the calculations and analysis in the methods section with different headlines based on reviewer comment. It is highlighted in red font in the main text of manuscript.
Point 3: It appears that the data from only 11 participants were collected in this study. First, is this small number sufficient enough to make the conclusions based on the statistical analysis? Second, how would the statistical analysis and conclusion change if the number of participants becomes large?
Response 3: We thank the reviewer for this precise comment. The results may differ with the larger number of participants. However, we had a limitation in the number of participants, because road cycling is not very popular in over country and we did not access more road cyclists who had our research criteria (more than three years of road cycling experience and free from injury at the time of testing and had no history of serious injuries or surgery in their lower extremities within the previous year). We mentioned this as a limitation of this study in the final paragraph of the discussion based on the reviewer's comment. This study could not find significant differences in the results of coordination and coordination variability at different pedaling intensities. However, it may the coordination variability show significant differences in some parts of the pedaling cycle with larger number of participants. Further researches is required to done with larger number of participants.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors are to be congratulated for making significant changes to the manuscript. In present form presented article can be considered for publication in Applied Sciences.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors' responses are satisfactory and I do not have any further comments.
