Comparison of Anthropometric and Physiological Profiles of Hungarian Female Rowers across Age Categories, Rankings, and Stages of Sports Career

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is well-written and easy to understand.  It gives important contributions in the field anthropometrical and physiological profiles of young female rowers. The previous research in this field is more focused on male athletes, so I appreciate the focus on female athletes of the manuscript.

The manuscript is well organized. Authors clearly describe methodology of their study design, statistical analysis and explain the results. Tables should be insert after the first mention in the text.

 

Some minor criticisms:

Abstract: …were created for 36 junior (15-16 years), 26 older-junior (17-18 years), and eight senior (19-21 years) female. Use one style of athlete number description, not 36, 26 and eight.

 

Introduction: ´… the force generated be the lower body is of greater importance to rowing performance. I suppose you meant “generated by”

 

Results: Describe all results with the same number of decimal places.

 

How do you explain the relatively high body fat percentage of the participants compared to previous studies of elite rowers (e.g., Slater GJ, Rice AJ, Mujika I, et al. Physique traits of lightweight rowers and their relationship to competitive success. British Journal of Sports Medicine 2005;39:736-741. )?

 

CMJ was measured using PJS-4P60S force plate (“JBA” Zb. Staniak, Poland). Was this force plate used for similar measures previously?

 

Participants were measured in the year 2021. Were their trainings during that year before the season affected by Covid-19?

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

The response to reviews is attached on file.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The following is the summary of the reviewed manuscript:

This study investigated the anthropometric and physiological profiles of young Hungarian female rowers of different age categories and sports rankings (international vs club). Rowers >17-years-old with international rankings significantly outperformed their age-group peers with club rankings in terms of power, absolute VO2max, and time to cover 2000 m, among other differences, but such differences were not observed with junior rowers. In all age groups, the length of the athletes’ sports career was not significantly associated with differences in anthropometric and physiological characteristics. This study suggests that ranking is not associated with differences in the anthropometric and physiological characteristics of juniors.

This is an interesting article. I have several minor comments:

First, in the introduction, can the authors mention more about the predictors of the rower’s performance based on the previous literature?

Second, is there any criteria to be enrolled in Gyor rowing club?

Third, a flow diagram to present the research flow is suggested.

Fourth, the full terms for HSD and SD should be given in the footnote of Table 1.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

The response to reviews is attached on file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The purpose of this study was to help fill the gap in knowledge regarding developing female rowing athletes by determining the anthropometric and physiological profiles of Hungarian female rowers of different age categories, (15–16, 17–18, and 18–21 years), sports rankings (international vs. club) and lengths of time as licensed rowers (seniority).

This study is very interesting because it is of great practical application. As the authors comment, the scientific literature does not have too many studies with women's rowers and even less with rowers that are not high-performance athletes.

Here are my contributions:

• Page 4 "2000. m. Maximal Rowing Ergometer Test" probably missing "2.6." at the beginning?
• Procedures: What methodology was used to obtain the folds? By whom were they taken?
• 2.4.- Why were the different formulas provided by the literature not used?  Pařízková`s formula, then in the results reference is made to this formula. Shouldn't this formula be specified in the procedures?
• In the discussion it is noted that senior female athletes have not been able to excel in international events, which could be the reason why no differences are observed with younger female rowers in some variables.So what sense does it make to have found differences in some other variables? coincidence? it would make sense to compare "non-elite" or on the way to be "elite" rowers with real elite rowers. The interesting thing is to know what characteristics the champion rowers have in order to be able to win, isn't it?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

The response to reviews is attached on file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

This article examined both age effects, anthropometric, and physiological profiles of junior female rowers. Overall, this article is interesting and adds to the literature on rowing and junior athletes. This article has merit and provides good information for coaches and practitioners. I have only minor comments to address and will break them down in a line-by-line format.

Major concerns:

None for this manuscript.

Minor concerns:

Introduction

“It has to be said that the best of Hungarian female rowers pretend to be outstanding rowers and have not yet achieved such spectacular successes as the finals of the World Championships or the Olympic Games.”

This can likely be stated in a different way. I understand what the authors are attempting to say but it can be rewritten to state this point differently.

Statistical Analysis

Please provide information on the scale for cohen’s d effect sizes. You need to provide the interpretations for values.

You need to include a correction factor for multiple t-tests that you run. You used the correct post hoc for the ANOVA but you need to run a similar correction for the t-test values.

Results

Throughout this section, you need to change each “significantly” into “statistically significant”.

Where applicable please provide the cohen’s d effect size after the p-value. This allows for an understanding of practical significance.

In the tables, you should provide an asterisk * for statistically significant values. You have both 0.05 and 0.01 so you can also include the sword † for those values. There are so many numbers involved you will want to draw the reader's attention to important values.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

The response to reviews is attached on file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Congratulations to the authors. The comments have been adequately answered.