The Influence of the Practiced Karate Style on the Dexterity and Strength of the Hand

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to review this manuscript for publication. However, as it is currently presented, I cannot give it as suitable for publication in this journal, it has a certain scientific deficiency that must be reviewed. Above all, it is not really clear to me what it contributes to scientific news and I would appreciate it if the authors could answer both this question and those that I present below

The presented introduction is weak, well structured but should be strengthened:
- Generalized scientific foundation of karate in the field of grip strength but also of different performance indicators to explain this sport, it is fundamental.
- The importance of hand strength not only in combat sports, but also in other sports fields in general.
- Expand the scientific basis of the studies that speak of grip strength and other combat sports.

Please, detail the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the participants, competitive level, .... It is essential to be able to extrapolate the results of the study.

Have you copied verbatim the protocol from reference [13] (line 81). If not, put that reference where it corresponds in the text, not starting the protocol with it.

Some aspects in results must be corrected: "p" and "r" in italics, mean and sd with only one decimal, F with the same decimals in text and in tables, symbol in adequate range (use a hyphen).

In Figure 1 they include a boxsplot but they do not explain it in the results.

The discussion is poor and somewhat messy, each finding found must be remembered, compared and interpreted clearly. Not only can direct references be used, justifications from other sports (not just combat) can help such an interpretation.

You must be clearer in the last paragraph of the discussion: limitations, concrete improvement proposals and concrete practical applications.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

In this paper, the Authors tried to assess some correlation between hand strength/dexterity in karate athletes and the selected karate style (Kyokushin vs Shotokan). The study was carried out experimentally on 40 athletes, that represent a reasonable sample for such analysis in my opinion. However, the outcomes of the research are quite limited.

Regarding dexterity, a single test based on a Ditrich rod was considered, and it did not highlight any significant difference between the two styles. As far as strength is concerned, Kyokushin style showed higher results due to the different kind of martial art technique, as expected. That said, the significance of the latter result seems quite disputable due to the large variability observed among the several athletes tested (up to about 40-50% of standard deviation for hand grip).

In addition, the methodology itself lacks originality. In reference [13], one of the Authors presented a similar application of this methods to judo-jujutsu. Still, this may be acceptable, however it surely does not support the novelty of the current work as it is.

In the following, some specific comments:

1) lines 64-66: the karate style may indeed affect motor skills. However, grip strength and dexterity are quite limited indicators of motor skill for such athletes, in my opinion. In other words, they could not be sufficient to describe the effects of different styles on motor skills. A discussion of this aspect is lacking and might be given in the Introduction. The Authors might consider to increase the number of biomechanical parameters to observe in order to answer this question.

2) line 69: a brief paragraph could be added, in which the structure of the paper is outlined.

3) lines 72-73: average age is quite different for the two groups. Could the years of training practice affect the grip strenght is Shotokan athletes?

4) lines 81-92: please, rephrase this paragraph to avoid self-plagiarism. A figure or scheme could help in the understanding of the test based on Ditrich rod. I am sorry but I could not find clear explanation in the suggested reference [14].

5) lines 96-97: what does "better measurement" refer to? It is not clear. Regarding this strength test, I understand that the measurement is performed in a static or quasi-static situation during which the force is held as stationary (more or less). However, dynamic, time-dipendent measurements could be more relevant due to the high dynamic content of such performance in karate athletes. Can you elaborate more on this, please?

6) line 105: please, introduce the indexes before Table 1.

7) lines 146-149: since "kata" are such important and affect mobility training in Shotokan athletes, I would expect a positive correlation on dexterity. This might confirm that the Ditrich rod test alone is not sufficient to highlight the effect of different karate styles on specific motor skills alteration.

For the reasons presented above, I believe that the paper should be reconsidered after major revision, hopefully by enforcing the significance of the results through additional analysis of the experimental data. 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for letting me review this interesting paper. The study design is appropriate. Basic investigation to know the possible differences between two different martial arts and combat sports.

The author must attend to the following concerns:

Methods: The authors must define clearly the participant characteristics: training workload (hours at week), etc. In addition, must be described the moment of the season where the tests were made.

This reviewer suggests that the training practice is more adequate in the participant's section.

Some limitations must be included.

Regards

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have made enough changes so that the article obtains sufficient quality to be published.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

With warm the gratitude, we would like to thank you very much for the positive opinion about our work. We are delighted for the opinion. We are pleased to see that we made satisfying changes and you are willing to accept our paper for further publishing process.

 

With all the gratitude,
Yours sincerely

Reviewer 2 Report

In the first review round, some limitations were highlighted, in particular regarding:

• the overall quite limited significance of the results, from the scientific point of view, as signaled by large deviations in hand grip measurements;
• the poor novelty of the methods, very similar to prior research;
• the methodology, being quite simple and practical (which is fine) but, still, lacking some depth in the biomechanical analysis of karate athletes.

The authors, in the revised version of the manuscript, arise two fundamental questions to be addressed: 1) Is there a difference in the grip strength and the Ditrich rod dexterity test between Kyokushin and Shotokan karate fighters and, 2)  how are the grip strength and the dexterity correlated to other chosen indexes? These questions are very specific, but I am not sure that they completely cover the main question presented even in the Abstract, that is: [...] does the karate style affect the aspects of motor coordination and the strength of the players' handshake?

Indeed, motor coordination probably requires deeper, full-body motion analysis to be addressed. This approach can be surely pursued in scientific research environments, although it would not be feasible in a clinical, practical scenario where simple measurements are more advisable. That said, if the authors want to propose a practical method for coaching practice, this does not seem completely coherent with the main purpose of the study, which is the finding of correlations between karate styles and motor coordination/hand grip strength.

Moreover, dynamic (time-dependent) rather than static strenght measurements could also be advisable, as signaled in the first review report. However, the authors does not seem to comment on this.

For these reasons, I believe that the main limitations highlighted in the first review round are still part of the current version of the manuscript, unfortunately.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We would like to thank you very much for acknowledging improvement of our manuscript, we did what we could at this point in dressing issues pointed out in the previous review.

We added the minor corrections:

 (…) The authors, in the revised version of the manuscript, arise two fundamental questions to be addressed: 1) Is there a difference in the grip strength and the Ditrich rod dexterity test between Kyokushin and Shotokan karate fighters and, 2)  how are the grip strength and the dexterity correlated to other chosen indexes? These questions are very specific, but I am not sure that they completely cover the main question presented even in the Abstract, that is: [...] does the karate style affect the aspects of motor coordination and the strength of the players' handshake?

# Change in abstract.

However, does the karate style affect the Ditrich rod dexterity and the strength of the players' handshake?

(…) Indeed, motor coordination probably requires deeper, full-body motion analysis to be addressed. This approach can be surely pursued in scientific research environments, although it would not be feasible in a clinical, practical scenario where simple measurements are more advisable. That said, if the authors want to propose a practical method for coaching practice, this does not seem completely coherent with the main purpose of the study, which is the finding of correlations between karate styles and motor coordination/hand grip strength.

# Thank you for pointing out the constrains faced by coach-friendly studies. We are totally agree with you. Only, in our opinion,  it would be more practical, if the simple tests could reveal the relationships between style and motor coordination/hand grip strength (the main purpose of the current study). Unfortunately, our results showed that only part of the differences between the styles existed. Since our results indicate that the simple methods work partially, future studies can add, in addition to the hand strength and hand-eye coordination tests, other practical methods to find if there is practical way existed to assess total body coordination.

(…) Moreover, dynamic (time-dependent) rather than static strenght measurements could also be advisable, as signaled in the first review report. However, the authors does not seem to comment on this.

# As indicated above, our current study focused on two simple methods, i.e. the dynamic strength measurements were out of the scope of our study. To add the dynamic tests as additional/complementary ones would be a great idea for future studies. We would like to consider the suggestion in our future studies.

Thank you for giving us a chance and possibility of reconsideration of this paper by Editor.

 

With all the gratitude,
Yours sincerely