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Dr. Albaladejo-Saura and co-authors, thank you for addressing all of the reviewer's concerns with your manuscript. You have made significant changes which have improved your paper and I am pleased to recommend it to be accepted for publication. Congratulations, A/Prof Mike Climstein
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Michelle Ploughman, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
Dear Dr Albaladejo-Saura and co-authors, your manuscript has been reviewed and minor revisions are recommended which I believe you can easily address.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: Please ensure that all review and editorial comments are addressed in a response letter and any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate. #]
The research work presented in this manuscript aimed to analyse the differences between predicted biological maturation status (early, average and late maturer groups) in performance of the selected physical fitness tests, and to determine which kinanthropometric variables could predict better performance in physical fitness tests, in adolescent male volleyball players. The participants were recruited from local region (of Spain) with age range 12-15, and n=48.
The authors concluded that significant differences based on the stages of biological maturation were found in the anthropometric and physical condition variables in favour of the players whose maturation process was more advanced, with the variables related to fat and adipose, muscle and bone development conditioning their performance in the physical condition tests.
The study is in an on-going area of research on the relationship between anthropometric characteristics and fitness/sport performance that may have implications in sport talent identification and coaching. The manuscript is well presented in general.
However, several areas in the article may need further clarification, and I would offer the following critiques for authors’ consideration, aiming to improve the clarity and quality of the manuscript.
As the authors have acknowledged, a limitation of the study was to use the equations developed by Mirwald et al. (2002) to estimate the maturation. The equations were established from a different (wider age range) and non-athlete (not specifically on volleyball) population. Such a limitation has been repeatedly highlighted in the literature. As a reader and a researcher, I would like to know why the authors did not actually measure the PHV (or establish the validity of using the equations in the target population), and how confident the authors were in respect of the conclusions. In case some errors may be embedded in the estimated maturation, would the relationship between the anthropometry and performance measurements be quite different or similar if the chronological age groups were used (e.g., 12, 13, 14, 15 years)? A comparison between the outcomes from the two approaches would be make more sense to inform practice. Or, at least some more in-depth discussion on the limitations would be appreciated by the readers.
How were the fitness tests selected in this study? Are these tests volleyball specific? E.g. no test/s on aerobic power was included. I would suggest add “selected” in the title before “kinanthropometric”, with some justification in the manuscript for the selections.
In the title of the article “kinanthropometric” was used, but in the text the measurements were basically “anthropometry”. The authors may consider define and use these terms according to the context.
The second aim of the study was “to determine which kinanthropometric variables could predict better performance in physical fitness tests…”. However, the Result section only showed some significant correlation coefficients. No prediction equation was presented in the text or Table 7. It should also be noted that whatever the correlations were, the application might only be limited to the population studied.
In Table 1, the unit for CMJ should be “m” or the values should be corrected as for “cm”.
Line 217: please use “show”.
The study examined the interesting topic of "biological maturation status" and the relationship between "kinanthropometric and physical fitness variables". The study is written in a scientific manner and is easy to understand.
The experimental design is explained in the method section. The number of participants used for the study is sufficient. Experimental methods are explained in an explanatory way.
The findings are explained with appropriate tables.
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