Which statement accurately describes the physical benefits of saq training?

31 May 2022

PONE-D-22-02272Whole-Body Sensorimotor Skill Learning in Football Players: No Evidence for Motor Transfer EffectsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Maudrich,

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The paper is well structured and describes a well conducted study. There are a few points that could be explaine in more detail, but generally the paper is publishable.

One suggestion would be a more detailled description of the control group. What sport were they doing and on what level?

Please also address the points of the reviewer carefully.

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Additional Editor Comments:

Dear authors,

I approached 21 potential reviewers, but found only one willing to provide an assessment of the paper. Therefore I took a careful look at the manuscript myself and feel confident to go forward with only 1 review. The paper is well structured and describes a well conducted study. There are a few points that could be explaine in more detail, but generally the paper is publishable.

One suggestion I have, would be a more detailled description of the control group. What sport were they doing and on what level?

Please also address the points of the other reviewer carefully.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Specific comments, suggestions, and questions are referenced to manuscript line numbers:

27-28: Does the phrase “increasing the overlap of motor demands between CWB-SRTT and an athlete group” mean that you were attempting to more closely match the demands of the CWB-SRTT with those imposed by participation in football (i.e., soccer)? If so, “motor demands” are characteristics of the sport activity. The “athlete group” does not possess motor demands.

33: Replace “as well as” with “nor” for consistency with “did not reveal any differences…”

39: The term “motor transfer” needs to be more clearly defined. An “athlete advantage over non-athletes when learning” does not define motor transfer.

49-50: The first sentence of the manuscript seems incomplete and is a bit unclear. Don’t you mean “the extent to which specific athlete performance capabilities exhibited during participation in a given sport-related activity translate to superior motor performance in a somewhat different activity”? The content of the sentence that follows seems to indicate that is what you intend to convey.

64-65: The extent to which a person has learned a motor sequence could be determined without consideration of response speed (i.e., proportion of correct motor responses). Are you suggesting that faster reaction is an indicator of superior motor sequence learning?

85-86: Redundant content. The is no need to repeat the information presented in prior text.

90: “Athletes from several sports can be considered as potential study populations…”

91-93, 100-101: Football (i.e., soccer) involves execution of motor sequences that are highly unpredictable, which leads to implicit learning of innumerable combinations, rather than explicit learning of specific sequences. This distinction between football performance in a competitive environment and th27-28: Does the phrase “increasing the overlap of motor demands between CWB-SRTT and an athlete group” mean that you were attempting to more closely match the demands of the CWB-SRTT with those imposed by participation in football (i.e., soccer)? If so, “motor demands” are characteristics of the sport activity. The “athlete group” does not possess motor demands.

33: Replace “as well as” with “nor” for consistency with “did not reveal any differences…”

39: The term “motor transfer” needs to be more clearly defined. An “athlete advantage over non-athletes when learning” does not define motor transfer.

49-50: The first sentence of the manuscript seems incomplete and is a bit unclear. Don’t you mean “the extent to which specific athlete performance capabilities exhibited during participation in a given sport-related activity translate to superior motor performance in a somewhat different activity”? The content of the sentence that follows seems to indicate that is what you intend to convey.

64-65: The extent to which a person has learned a motor sequence could be determined without consideration of response speed (i.e., proportion of correct motor e nature of the CWB-SRTT needs to be emphasized. Furthermore, references to “motor actions, motor transfer, and motor skill” fail to acknowledge the complex “cognitive-motor” integration process that is required for efficient performance of whole-body movement sequences.

147-160: Apparently, 12 movements were performed during each “block” (Lines 129-131), which are also referred to as “learning sequences” and “random sequences” in the Figure 1 legend. I interpret this to mean that a total of 204 movements were performed during the Day 1 and Day 2 sessions. This information should be provided.

171: Why wasn’t a Bonferroni alpha-level correction used for multiple comparisons (i.e., 2 separate ANOVAs for reaction time and movement time)?

280: Delete the word “Both” at the beginning of the sentence.

284: I suggest replacing the phrase “comparably large intersection between” with “similarity between…”

286: I suggest replacing the word “lower” (which could be interpreted as a negative finding) with “faster…”

294: Specify “a possible explanation for the lack of significant differences…”

304: I suggest replacing the word “lower” (which could be interpreted as a negative finding) with “faster…”

318-319: The preceding content did not clearly provide an explanation for why you expected football players to demonstrate better learning rates for than non-athletes for a specific sequence of movement cues. I fail to see the relevance of sequence-specific learning to the high degree of uncertainty about the complex motor actions that will need to be rapidly executed in a competitive sport environment.

330-337: I agree that the sequence-specific improvements probably represent a cognitive adaptation in memory processes, but “sensorimotor processes” are not distinct from cognitive processes. The content of this sentence implies that the cognitive domain is distinct from the sensorimotor domain.

355: I suggest replacing the phrase “In any way” with “In any case…”

360-361: The content of this sentence is very confusing. Suggested rewording: “Although faster reaction and movement times were observed among football players compared to non-athletes prior to training, differences between groups were not statistically significant for either random or sequence-specific movement cues.”

362-363: Suggested rewording for greater clarity: “There did not appear to be any substantial transfer of cognitive-motor football skill to learning the novel movement sequences of the CWB-SRTT.”

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Gary B. Wilkerson

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Overview of participant characteristics.