*2.1. Participants*

Seventy-two healthy female handball players participated in this study. They were divided into two different age groups: U14 (36 players, age: 13.44 ± 0.5 years, height: 1.64 <sup>±</sup> 0.04 m, BM: 57.83 <sup>±</sup> 5.79 kg, BMI: 21.49 <sup>±</sup> 1.52 kg m−<sup>2</sup> ) and U17 (36 players, age: 15.95 <sup>±</sup> 0.76 years, height: 1.67 <sup>±</sup> 0.05 m, BM: 59.21 <sup>±</sup> 6.16 kg, BMI: 21.22 <sup>±</sup> 1.63 kg m−<sup>2</sup> ). All of them belong to a regional local handball team, and they train for 1 h 30 min per session 4 times weekly. Before beginning the intervention, all participants and their parents signed an informed consent form in accordance with the international ethical standards, in particular the Declaration of Helsinki [28]. It should be noted that four participants withdrew before the start of the study for personal reasons (2 from each group) and their data were not accounted for in the statistical analysis.
