Effect of Gender and Anthropometrics on the Kinematics of the Lunge in Young Foil Fencers (Lunge Kinematics in Young Fencers)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

 

Thank you for your contribution to Biomechanics. Although the research question your article addresses is interesting, your manuscript, in its current form, lacks the necessary quality to justify publication in Biomechanics.

Please revise your manuscript carefully and thoroughly according to the following issues:

 

Major issues:

• Throughout the paper it remains unclear what level the subjects of this study belonged to. In line 93/94 the authors state “The fencers were at the beginning of their career, but all regularly take part in regional competitions.” This is not sufficiently precise. Please use objective qualifiers such as national junior elite rankings or similar. Please state if the subjects are to be considered, e.g., recreational, general amateur or junior elite level.
• English language requires extensive editing. Many sentences contain grammar or vocabulary mistakes, especially with respect to verb conjugation. In some cases, the literal meaning of the sentences is actually opposite to what the authors presumably wanted to express, for

Minor issues:

• Inconsistent use of abbreviations: sometimes NEF, sometimes only NE; often “s” for second, occasionally “sec”, though.
• Formatting inconsistent: double spaces or tabs within a sentence; first letter of sentence sometimes not capitalised etc.
• Table 5 misses column designations

Best regards

 

Your reviewer

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

 

we sincerely appreciate your suggestions. We made our best to comply with them.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Regarding the strength and weaknesses of this paper, I found that the approach is well conducted and relevant to the aim that was proposed. There were few details that could've been resolved but I thought that, overall, they are not very significant in order to reject the article and I mean the exact specification of the fencers level. Of course, the authors could've written if they are beginners or experienced but they revealed the age and specified that the athletes participated in regional competition. Like I said before, overall, from my point of view, the article can be accepted because the research approach proved an organized work and showed real orientation information in this field.

Author Response

We thank very much reviewer 2 for the appreciation of our work.

 

 

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript entitled “Effect of Gender and Anthropometrics on the Kinematics of the Lunge in Young Foil Fencers (Lunge kinematics in young fencers)” primarily aimed to explore the most relative factor in lunge performance and analyze the gender difference on kinematics. The authors bring an interesting study, but there are still some problems need to be fixed. Some suggestions are listed in the specific comments below.

 

Specific comments:

1. In the abstract section, line 14, ‘Lunge kinematics and anthropometrics were collected.’ What system did you use to collect these data? Please add a brief description.
2. In the abstract section, please add a brief description about the statistical analysis of this manuscript.
3. In the abstract section, what does the abbreviation ‘FFM’ mean?
4. In the abstract section. ‘Linear and angular velocities and ranges of motions are lower in young fencers in comparison to adults.’ Please write this sentence in the past tense.
5. In the abstract section, line 20-21. ‘Based on these results, we suggest a different approach to teaching of the lunge in foil’s young fencers’, please add a full stop.
6. In the abstract section, what is the implication of this study? Please add a brief description.
7. In the introduction part, line 25-26, ‘Fencing has ancient origins: for millennia men have been trained to use bladed weapons for war needs. Only in the last few centuries it became a sport.’ Is it necessary to make this sentence as a paragraph? Please consider revising it.
8. In the introduction part, line 39, ‘…and which are the strategy…”, please replace ‘are’ with ‘is’.
9. In the introduction part, line 40-41, ‘Young fencers have less developed motor system and may not employ the same motor patterning of older and more experienced ones.’ Please add relevant references to support this statement.
10. In the introduction part, line 66, ‘Mulloy [7] who studied 6 sword NE male’. What does the abbreviation ‘NE’ mean? Does it refer to ‘NEF’? please check this problem throughout this manuscript. Besides, please replace ‘male’ with ‘males’.
11. In the introduction part, line 79-84, please consider rearranging the paragraph.
12. In the materials and methods part, please add a table to present the basic information about the participants (includes age, height, weight, fence experience)
13. In the anthropometry section, was the measurement carried out by the same researcher?
14. In the kinematics section, line 116-117, ‘We employed a modified Plug-in Gait set of 34 markers (Figure 1)’ please avoid using ‘we’, which is too subjective.
15. In the kinematics section, line 127-128, ‘3D points were filtered with a Butterworth low pass filter of 4th order set at 20Hz.” Please add the relevant reference here.
16. Figure 2 and 3 are not clear, please consider to provide much clearer ones.
17. Table 5 is really confusing, please revise it.
18. In the discussion part, before anthropometry, it is recommended to add a paragraph to descript the aim and main findings of this study.
19. In the discussion part, ‘The aims pf the study were to compare male and female fencers…’I think there is a typo in this sentence. Please replace ‘pf’ with ‘of’.
20. In the discussion part, line 242-243, ‘Due that FFM is known to be related to strength, this result is not surprising.’ What result? Please be more specific.
21. In the conclusion part, line 261-262, ‘A limitation of our study is that we tested one subject at a time and not in competition circumstances…’ limitation should be put in the last paragraph of the discussion part, please revise it.
22. In the conclusion part, line 263-264, ‘For firs time kinematics data on the lunge of young foil 263 fencers were presented.’ Please replace ‘firs’ with ‘first’.
23. In the conclusion part, what is the implication of this study?

Author Response

We thank you very much the reviewer. All the addressed items were corrected at our best possibilities.

We add the demographics table, corrected the issue with language, corrected table 5 (now 6) and updated abstract, introduction, discussion and conclusions. All the minor issues were corrected according to the reviewer suggestions.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for your revision.

Best regards

Your Reviewer

Author Response

Thank you very much, English has been reviewed.

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors are commended that substantial revisions were made to increase the clarity of the manuscript. However, there are still several issues of grammar, typo and language to be addressed.  Authors are encouraged to polish the whole manuscript.

Author Response

thank you very much, english has been improved.