Enhancing Motor Abilities in Male Basketball Players Through Complex Training: A Systematic Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Having read the article “Enhancing Motor Abilities in Basketball Players through

Complex Training: A Systematic Review”, I believe that there are some major issues should be considered.

Some serious methodological aspects are not correctly address in this paper, and for this reason I recommend major revision.

 

Abstract – The abstract should be rewritten according the PRISMA guidelines

 

Keywords – The keywords should be complementary from the title, not repeated.

 

Three are two major methodological problems that have a direct influence in the quality of this systematic review.

 

(1)     – There is no protocol registration. As I mentioned previously, there is a main pint. I refer that this protocol cannot be accepted in PROSPERO because do nt have helath related issues. Nerveless, there are several plataforms (e.g., inplasy, IOSF.io) that permit register protocols. Note that the protocol should be registered before to start the review, and a new registration implies a new search in the plataforms after the date of registration.

(2)     – The evaluation tool used to analyze the quality of the papers is a specific tool for studies developed in the context of physiotherapy. Tried MINORs, for exemple.

(3)     – The syntax used for each database is not presented.

 

According the best PRISMA guidelines and AMSTAR tool, there are major concerns related to the quality of a systematic review.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We sincerely appreciate your time and effort in reviewing this manuscript and for your valuable contributions to its significant improvement.

Please find the detailed responses and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in the re-submitted files.

 

Kind regards,

 

The authors

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

After several rounds of review and revisions, the quality of this paper has significantly improved. I fully support its publication. Thank you for your hard work.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comment. We have carefully considered your previous and recent suggestions, which have significantly enhanced the quality of the paper. Your valuable input has helped elevate it to a high standard.

Once again thank you very much for your interest in our paper and for your useful advice.

 

Kind regards,

 

The authors

 

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

you have prepared an interesting review of the scientific literature. As you write, probably the first of its kind in the world. The manuscript was prepared correctly, using the right research tools (the PRISMA). You have made an in-depth analysis of complex training and its value in the motor preparation of basketball players. You have developed good conclusions, which I believe will be useful for basketball coaches.

My comments on the text:

1. Since the research concerned only male basketball players, I would clarify the title and purpose of the research (e.g. male basketball players).
2. In the Introduction you explained the abbreviation COD (change of direction). You repeated the same in line 206, unnecessarily.
3. Materials and Methods (lines 121-123) "The search strategy was modified...". What did the adaptation and modification consist of? Where in the manuscript is it described?
4. Tables and figures - clear.
5. Discussion - it exhausts the discussed problem to a large extent.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We sincerely appreciate your time and effort in reviewing this manuscript and for your valuable contributions to its significant improvement.

Please find the detailed responses and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in the re-submitted files.

 

Kind regards,

 

The authors

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

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

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you very much to the authors for their work on this paper. I have the following comments:

1. The authorship format does not meet the required standards. Why are the corresponding authors set up this way? Why is the last author not the corresponding author, but instead the third and eighth authors?

2. Please provide a more detailed explanation of "complex training" in line 43. The current definition is neither simple nor clear enough. Emphasize its distinction from weight training.

3. The methodology section lacks clarity and rigor. I suggest referring to and modeling it after the following reference: 10.1016/j.ctim.2023.102995.

4. In Table 2, under the entry for Papla et al. (2023) [30], should "EXP1, EXP ↑ ATS" be revised to "EXP1, EXP2 ↑ ATS"?

5. While the scientific process and conclusions are reasonable, as a sports coach, I would like to see more detailed information. For example, the conclusion mentions a 10-week complex training program with 2-3 sessions per week, a recovery period of at least 48 hours between training the same muscle group, 2-8 repetitions for weight training, and 5-15 repetitions for plyometric training. However, these conditions remain vague. What about the intensity for strength training, such as 1-RM? How exactly should plyometric training be performed? These details are not clear. Furthermore, were the methods used in the cited studies consistent? If not, how can they be analyzed collectively? I believe these points should be discussed in detail.

In conclusion, I do not oppose the publication of this study. However, I believe that the methodology section urgently needs improvement. I recommend thoroughly reviewing the relevant literature I have suggested.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. 

Please find the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in the re-submitted file.

Kind regards,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This systematic review seeks to examine the influence of complex training methods on the physical performance traits (motor skills) associated with basketball performance. As the submission currently stands there are several areas that need to be improved before recommending publication to the editor.

 

The first concern that I have is in the introduction. Much of lines 44 - 54 are stating the same idea. This reads as being very redundant and lack of knowledge on the topic area. I would suggest that the authors further develop the introduction on the mechanisms that allow complex training to be successful training modality and how that translates to the motor skills being assessed in this review. 

There is a lack of depth in the introduction as to why the authors believe that complex training is the "best and/or superior" training modality to treating the two components as separate sessions, or only using one of the training modalities, which also has been shown to be effective in enhancing these same motor skills.

Each of the motor skills being assessed for improvement have their own unique patterning and training to enhance on does not always mean that it will translate to other skills (ex. COD to sprinting). This is not discussed and the authors appear to try and promote complex training as a tool that can benefit all these traits in basketball athletes. While the review is focused on basketball athletes, presenting data from other reviews or studies outside of basketball that share similar motor skills (volleyball, soccer, handball) in the introduction could benefit to setting up the intent of the research question being asked.

 

Methods:

Half of the manuscripts that were sought for retrieval were not retrieved. Why? This appears to be a major limitation of this review.

Results:

Please add statistical findings from the included studies in the review.

Discussion:

The discussion of this manuscript is weak. There is a clear lack of depth to the discussion of the studies included from a results standpoint. 

As an example, "Roden and associates [29] show that both types of complex training (high-low intensity and high-low number of exercise repetitions) yield similar results in improving vertical jump height."

There are no further discussion points regarding this finding. While this is not the case for every finding in the discussion it is the vast majority.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. 

Please find the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in the re-submitted file. Additionally, please find the document containing our responses to your suggestions attached to the journal's platform.

Kind regards,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Having read the article “Enhancing Motor Abilities in Basketball Players through

Complex Training: A Systematic Review”, I believe that there are some major issues should be considered.

Some serious methodological aspects are not correctly address in this paper, and for this reason I cannot recommend it for publication.

According to the best practices for systematic reviews, the authors should publish the protocol of the revision before starting the screening process. The authors did not register the protocol.

Additionally, the methodological quality of the papers included in this review were not evaluated.

These two methodological errors place the review at a critically low quality, according to the AMSTAR-2 tool for evaluation systematic reviews.

There is other questionable decision in the methodological process, like the databases selected for the search, the fact that the whole search strategy was not presented, and the limitation of the included papers.

I will not perform a detailed revision, because these major errors have a direct influence in the whole paper.

Sorry for my criticism, but the good reviews should have a strong methodological process.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. 

Please find the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in the re-submitted file.

Kind regards,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the authors' thorough and thoughtful responses. Overall, I support the publication of this article. However, I believe the discussion on page 10, lines 90–95, could be further elaborated and recommend adding more detail as appropriate. Additionally, the authors appear to have drawn inspiration from the writing style of the article published in Complementary Therapies in Medicine (DOI: 10.1016/j.ctim.2023.102995), which should be cited. That said, my support for the publication of this article remains unchanged, regardless of whether this citation is included. Thank you.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. 

Please find the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in the re-submitted file. Additionally, please find the document containing our responses to your suggestions attached to the journal's platform.

Kind regards,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for taking the time to address the major concerns from the first submission.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

Thanks for your comments. Nerveless, it is not correct to register a protocol after completing the review. Additionally, probably PROSPERO will not accept your protocol since they only accept protocols with health related outcomes.

a protocol that presente the same day for registration, search, data extraction etc... is not a truly protocol.

Aditionally, there is no (again) mythological quality evaluation of the studies included.

Sorry for my criticism, but this systematic review has not a strong methodological quality.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. 

Please find the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in the re-submitted file. Additionally, please find the document containing our responses to your suggestions attached to the journal's platform.

Kind regards,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx