PONE-D-23-36041Effects of Short-Term Pre-Competition Weight Loss on Certain Physiological Parameters and Strength Change in Elite BoxersPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Badicu,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 08 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Jovan Gardasevic

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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6. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments:

I have read it carefully, I feel that certain corrections should be made to make it ready for publication. Focus on the reviewers' objections and try to correct their comments. 

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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

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

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

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: Boxers lose weight and lose strength with a restrictive diet.

This study did not convince me of its justification.

The authors did what is already known.

It would be useful for practice if the authors gave us an answer to the following: Is the strength they possess after the experimental program still higher than those who do not remove weight?

However, we do not have that answer.

The technical manuscript is extremely well prepared. I have no complaints from that side.

I read a lot of interesting information and learned something while doing this review. However, I remain of the opinion that this manuscript did not reach the quality for the Plos One rating journal.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript titled “Effects of Short-Term Pre-Competition Weight Loss on Certain Physiological Parameters and Strength Change in Elite Boxers” (PONE-D-23-36041). The authors aim to evaluate the change in body composition of boxers whose pre-competition diets were under control and how this change affects both knee extensors and flexors and shoulder internal and external rotators muscle strength. In the study, it was assumed that E+D2 would have an optimization in body composition and a reduced power output, whereas in E+D1, the two parameters would be fixed or in an increasing tendency.

For transparency, I have limited understanding and little experience with boxing and practical activities applied by the authors of this study; however, the application of the theoretical knowledge into the practice and comments related to these issues, as well as overall review, such as part of results and discussion should be considered.

The results are written clearly and supported by the appropriate tables and figures in text. The authors also provide a great deal of analysis and data in appendices to the manuscript which is appreciated. The results are appropriately discussed, with the authors drawing on relevant literature and are careful with their interpretations given the quality of the evidence used in the review. The authors appropriately acknowledge the limitations of this work. The authors are to be commended on an interesting manuscript, and a valuable piece of work that treats separate categories of the boxers and assessed the association between different approaches of diet and training interventions.

I would recommend to the authors the followings:

[1] Exclude abbreviation in abstract that are not well-known e.g. describe the groups of boxers clearly etc;

[2] Do not put unnecessary information in abstract as the abstract has to contain just the most important information that will persuade potential readers to read the whole manuscript e.g. “The data obtained were analyzed in SPSS 22.0 package software” – this sentence is absolutely unnecessary etc.;

[3] The method section is too long and it is hard to read the manuscript, so I recommend to use some protocol that is already published and just cite it with some highlighted modifications; This can be also used from PlosOne protocol section or protocols.io;

[4] From the reason the limitations are mentioned but did not explained briefly, I do believe it is necessary to add recommendations for the further studies and share some experiences from this study to help researchers who will replicate this study in setting up the study designed and avoid some eventual methodological issues;

[5] the reference list should be revised and updated by full meta data.

My comments to the authors are all relatively minor and are primarily there to perhaps improve the readability of the manuscript.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Stevo Popovic

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PONE-D-23-36041R1Effects of Short-Term Pre-Competition Weight Loss on Certain Physiological Parameters and Strength Change in Elite BoxersPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Badicu,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

I agree with the reviewer's decision on minor revision of the manuscript, please submit the manuscript again for review after that correction.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 20 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Jovan Gardasevic

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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2. 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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6. 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 #2: Thank you very much for accepting all my recommendations. I have no further requests and I recommend that this manuscript can be accepted.

Reviewer #3: very good study. the authors have decided on a topic that is very interesting and current. I have to praise the methodological setting of the work, because the method of research is presented very clearly and in detail.

my only objection is of a technical nature:

- when you show figure 1, you put its title above the graph, and for the others (figure 2, figure 3...) you put the title below the graph. It must be identical, as prescribed by the standard.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: Yes: Stevo Popovic

Reviewer #3: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Effects of Short-Term Pre-Competition Weight Loss on Certain Physiological Parameters and Strength Change in Elite Boxers

PONE-D-23-36041R2

Dear Mr. Georgian Badicu,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Jovan Gardasevic

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: