Assessing Change of Direction Ability in Young Male Athletes: A Comparative Analysis of Change of Direction Deficit and Change of Direction Total Time

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Abstract

I suggest using the percentages without decimals.

Define, what type of athletes.

Introduction

Modify the literature “[1]”

Please, modify the sentences for syntax

“Elite athletes require 4-5.5s, 4.5-7s, 7.5-13s, and 13-19s, respectively, to complete tests such as Pro-agility, L-shaped, T-shaped, and Illinois COD tests respectively(Nimphius et al., 2018”

“Elite athletes require 4-5.5s, 4.5-7s, 7.5-13s, and 13-19s, respec-tively, to complete tests such as Pro-agility, L-shaped, T-shaped, and Illinois COD tests respectively(Nimphius et al., 2018)”

“Nimphius et al.(2013) demonstrated that rugby players used only 31% of the 505 COD time for real COD, supporting the findings”

Please explain what sports athletes. “ Elite athletes require 4-5.5s, 4.5-7s, 7.5-13s, and 13-19s, respectively, to complete tests such as Pro-agility, L-shaped, T-shaped, and Illinois COD tests respectively(Nimphius et al., 2018) .”.

Methods

Participants

Did you conduct any priori G power analysis?

How do you prove that you had an elite level of athletes? They are only 16 years old.

Design and procedures

Please explain your study design. It was randomized with a counterbalanced order? Give some extra information.

Also, you should regard your methodology with some references.

Did you record the whole process with a video camera? Please, explain.

Linear speed test

Delete the general details from here and write them in the design and procedures section. Keep the test sections without many other details such as pre-activation warm-up.

COD test

Use capitals only at the beginning of a sentence.

Define the abbreviation “DOM”

Data processing and statistical analysis

Split data processing and statistical analysis into two parts.

Statistical analysis

Do you think that a regression analysis could explain better the percentage of prediction between CODTT, CODD, and the sprint test?

Results

Table1. Delete the bold line.

Before Table 2 check the “sprin” which probably means sprint and modify the percentages with no decimals.

There are syntax errors, especially in the introduction.

Author Response

the author's notes to reviewers are attached

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Dear Authors, 

sorry for my unfriendly review, but I see no new research and no new application or data here.

1) The experimental setup is extremely unclear, why you have selected only those atheles? 

2) it might be a nice example or suitable for a student project, but I don't see a reason to publish that as a paper. 

3) If you refurbish the text and show it for different group of athletes from various origin, it might be interesting. But in the current state, I don't see any added value.

nothing

Author Response

my notes to reviewer are follows:

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

This manuscript sought to explore the use of CODD as a measure of COD performance in a sample of adolescent athletes from a variety of sporting backgrounds. Overall, this manuscript is well written and provides a solid foundational background to the usage of CODD.

The only concern I have regarding this submission is in the reliability of the data obtained from the sample. Providing ICC and CV values would be of benefit.

Author Response

my notes to reviewers are follows:

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

The authors modified the manuscript according to the comments. I suggest in future studies including camera recording during the procedure.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable feedback and suggestions. We appreciate your input and have taken your suggestion into consideration. In future studies, we will include camera recording during the procedure to enhance the comprehensiveness and transparency of our research. This addition will provide a more detailed and visual account of the procedure, which can help improve the understanding and replicability of our work. We believe that incorporating camera recording will be a valuable addition to our research methodology, and we look forward to implementing this in our future studies.

Sincerely,

Jiachi Ye

Shanghai university of sport

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Considering the data base of the Journal “Applied Sciences”, probably the author(s) can include some more relevant reference(s) in this paper. Strongly recommend this reference(s), considering the importance of the subject and citation report.

Despite the research design is appropriated, it will be interesting if the author(s) consider in the future research a comparative study with young girls’ athletes, according the 2030 Agenda UN, particularly the goal number 5 (gender equity) included in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”.

The study considered the ethical principles of the Helsinki Declaration for human research. Congrats!

In a short expression the author(s) conclude that, Using CODD to evaluate athletes' COD ability may provide a more accurate result than CODTT. Congrats!

Reviewer 2 Report

Please find attached.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The title needs Modification: Comparison of Deficit and Total Time as Evaluative Measures of Change of Direction Ability in Young Male Athletes.

Please, rewrite the aim of your study in the abstract. It is confusing.

Which is the difference in these results? “Moderate to a very high correlation between CODTT and linear speed at 0-5m, 0-10m, and 0- 30m (P < 0.05, r = 0.471-0.778), while no statistically significant relationship between CODD and linear speed at 0-5m and 0-10m (P > 0.05, r = 0.011-0.283)”.

Add in your abstract a more extensive methodology, describing what was measured.

Use other keywords which are independent of the title.

Rewrite the first two rows in the first paragraph of the introduction

2^nd paragraph, 4^th row. Write “respectively” here.

2^nd paragraph, 5-8^th row. Rewrite the sentence.

Methodology

Are there any inclusion or exclusion criteria?

Does it allocate the danger of the effect of the previous test to affect the next one? Also, which was the sequence in which each group did the COD tests? Was it a randomized and counterbalanced order?

In a linear speed test, was it necessary to add again a warm–up procedure? It would be better to report it as a familiarization process.

Figures must do the description of COD tests for better understanding.

For a sample of fewer than 50 participants, it is more appropriate to use Shapiro – wilk.

Results

Rewrite the first sentence. Also, delete parenthesis in the results.

Table1. It would be interesting to conduct a statistical analysis of these differences.

Discussion

It is not necessary to add numbers from the results in the discussion.

Please, explain the difference between Pro – agility and Pro – agility 0 – 10 m. It is necessary to use a more explanatory way to describe and the difference between the agility tests. Check the comment in methodology.

Check the whole manuscript about commas, full stops, and capitals.

“Another study by Loturco et al. (2020) compared the Zigzag ability of U15, U17, U20, and adult rugby players and found the CODTT and 20m sprint ability in each age stage increased with age, but CODD showed the opposite trend.” Please, explain what do you mean with “increased with age”.

“Firstly, only Y pre-planned agility and Pro-agility were chosen, and a more thorough demonstration of the CODD was not accomplished by including more COD types.” It is not clear what you mean.