Fatma Ünver Koçak

Comparison of the physiological responses to different small-sided games in elite young soccer players.

Köklü, Y, Aşçi, A, Koçak, FÜ, Alemdaroğlu, U, and Dündar, U. Comparison of the physiological responses to different small-sided games in elite young soccer players. J Strength Cond Res 25(6): 1522-1528, 2011—The purpose of this study was to compare the blood lactate (La−), heart rate (HR) and percentage of maximum HR (%HRmax) responses among the small-sided games (SSGs) in elite young soccer players. Sixteen players (average age 15.7 ± 0.4 years; height 176.8 ± 4.6 cm; body mass 65.5 ± 5.6 kg; &OV0312;o2max 53.1 ± 5.9 ml·kg−1·min−1; HRmax 195.9 ± 7.4 b·min−1) volunteered to perform the YoYo intermittent recovery test and 6 bouts of soccer drills including 1-a-side, 2-a-side, 3-a-side, and 4-a-side games without a goalkeeper in random order at 2-day intervals. The differences in La−, HR and %HRmax either among the SSGs or among the bouts were identified using 4 × 6 (games × exercise bouts) 2-way analysis of variance with repeated measures. Significant differences were found on La−, HR, and %HRmax among the bouts (p ≤ 0.05). The 3-a-side and 4-a-side games were significantly higher than 1-a-side and 2-a-side games on HR and %HRmax (p ≤ 0.05), whereas the 1-a-side game significantly resulted in higher La− responses compared to other SSGs. This study demonstrated that physiological responses during the 1-a-side and 2-a-side games were different compared to 3-a-side and 4-a-side games. Therefore, it can be concluded that a decreased number of players results in increased intensity during SSGs including 6 bouts. These results suggest that coaches should pay attention on choosing the SSG type and the number of bouts to improve desired physical conditioning of elite young soccer players in soccer training.

Level of evidence in four selected rehabilitation journals.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the methodologic quality and level of evidence of publications in major peer-reviewed general rehabilitation journals (Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation [APMR], American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation [AJPMR], Clinical Rehabilitation [CR], and Physical Therapy [PT]). DESIGN Descriptive, comparative. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES All the articles published in AJPMR, APMR, CR, and PT between January 2005 and December 2009 were investigated. Type of study and level of evidence were recorded for all articles. Selection and assessment of articles were based on the title and abstract by 2 independent raters. RESULTS The most frequently published reports were randomized controlled trials (12.7%), followed by cross-sectional studies (12.1%), case reports/case series (10.3%), validation studies (9.3%), cohort studies (8.9%), clinical trials (7.5%), case-control studies (6.8%), and other study types (32.4%). When the articles were classified according to their level of evidence, level I studies most frequently appeared in CR (29.1%), followed by PT (11.0%), APMR (10.5%), and AJPMR (7.1%). Most of the meta-analyses (10) were in APMR, and there were none in AJPMR. CONCLUSIONS Randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses form only a small proportion of articles published in the current rehabilitation literature. The numbers of randomized controlled trials and meta-analysis are comparable with those in other fields.

Reference accuracy in four rehabilitation journals

Objective: To investigate the incidence of reference errors in major peer-reviewed general physical therapy and rehabilitation journals (American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (AJPMR), Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (APMR), Clinical Rehabilitation (CR) and Physical Therapy (PT)). Design: Descriptive, comparative. Main outcome measures: All issues of the AJPMR, APMR, CR and PT between 2003 and 2007 were studied. For each journal, references from articles were consecutively numbered, and using a random number generator, 100 references were selected from each journal. For each reference, ease of retrieval on MEDLINE and the presence of citation errors were noted. If discrepancies were identified, the reference was compared with the original publication. Two observers independently evaluated each reference for citation errors. Results: The total number of citations with errors among all published journals was 123 (30.7%). The reference error rates by journal ranged from 23% to 44%. Most errors (48.0%) occurred in the author element, followed by the title (31.7%), journal (8.9%), page (5.7%), year (4.1%), and volume (1.6%). Only 8 (2%) were likely to make retrieval of the reference difficult. Conclusions: Errors in references still appear in current physical therapy and rehabilitation literature, but most are not severe.

A comparison of heart rate response and frequencies of technical actions between half-court and full-court 3-a-side games in high school female basketball players.

Abstract Atlı, H, Köklü, Y, Alemdaroğlu, U, and Ünver Koçak, F. A comparison of heart rate response and frequencies of technical actions between half-court and full-court 3-a-side games in high school female basketball players. J Strength Cond Res 27(2): 352–356, 2013—The purpose of this study was to compare heart rate (HR) response and frequency of technical actions between half-court and full-court 3-a-side games in female high school basketball players. Twelve young female basketball players (age 15.5 ± 0.5 years; height 165.1 ± 5.7 cm; body mass 57.3 ± 7.2 kg; training age 4.2 ± 0.7 years; HRmax 202.9 ± 5.6 b·min−1) participated in this study voluntarily. On the first day, anthropometric measurements (height and body mass) were taken for each player; this was followed by the Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test (YIRT) level 1 for the subjects. Then, half-court and full-court 3-a-side games were organized in random order at 2-day intervals. The HRmax for each player was determined during the YIRT, after which the HR was measured during the 3-a-side games. In addition, the frequencies of different categories of technical actions were counted manually during the 3-a-side games. A paired t-test was calculated for each dependent variable, including HR, percentage of maximum HR (%HRmax), and the frequencies of different technical actions to compare half-court and full-court 3-a-side games. The study results indicate that the full-court 3-a-side games produced significantly higher responses than the half-court 3-a-side games in terms of HR and %HRmax (p < 0.05), whereas the half-court games resulted in significantly higher frequencies of technical actions (p < 0.05). The results of this study suggest that, if coaches want to achieve greater HR responses, coaches of female high school basketball players should organize full-court 3-a-side games, whereas coaches who want to focus on technical actions should arrange half-court 3-a-side games.

Reference Accuracy in Four Respiratory Medical Journals

The citation error numbers are recorded as number and percentage according to the error grade. The total number of citations with errors among all published journals was 103 (25.8%). The number of references with errors ranged from the lowest error rate of 22% for the European Respiratory Journal to the highest of 31% recorded for the Respiratory Medicine and bibliographically classified errors for all journals are presented in table 1 . Our study of respiratory medical journals gave a prevalence of citation errors of 25.8%. The rate of citation errors in respiratory medicine is lower than the median rate of biomedical journals (median 36%, range 4–66.7%) [6] . Errors in citation reflect poorly on the author, the validity of the article, the peer review process, and the reputation of the journal [1, 3, 7] . The problem of inappropriate citations is not so easily solved, and would require prodigious effort on the part of reviewers, editors or journal staff members [2] . The ultimate responsibility for and solution to the problem of citation inaccuracies and misuse must lie with authors themselves [8] . Authors must be more vigilant and precise in their referencing practices and in the final review and reading of galley proofs [2, 9] . They should also always check the original source when citing references used in other articles [2, 9] . How can errors in references be reduced? Obviously, submission of photocopies of the first and last page of all references cited in the submitted article [2, 3, 8, 9] and this has been effective in reducing citation errors [1] . Alternatively, spot checks of the references by editors or reviewers may also be effective [1, 3, 4] . The direct downloading of references from MEDLINE [1, 2, 4] downloadable E-Journals [2, 7] , or the use of referencing software (such as End-note) [2, 7] to avoid errors instead of copying them manually from the original article may help to avoid errors [1, 3, 9] , although computerized databases can themselves contain errors [2] . Other precautions may include citational or quotational conReferences are essential components of published articles [1, 2] and serve a number of important and useful functions [3] . Thus, the accuracy of references is critical [4] . Our study aimed to evaluate the current frequency of reference errors in the field of respiratory medicine over a 5-year period. The four widely circulated major peer -reviewed respiratory medical journals: Respiratory Medicine, European Respiratory Journal, Thorax, and Respiration were selected for investigation. All issues of the journals between 2004 and 2008 were investigated. For each journal, references from articles were consecutively numbered, and, using a random number generator, 100 references were selected from each journal. Each cited reference was then compared against the MEDLINE and checked for accuracy, including the authors’ names, the title of the article, the title of the journal, volume and page numbers, and publication date. Errors were graded as suggested by Sutherland et al. [5] : grade I errors are those that have little or no impact on the value of the reference (error in author initials, missing author, wrong journal abbreviation or spelling); grade II errors are those detract significantly from the value of the references (missing subtitle, missing page numbers, wrong page numbers, or inaccurate title), and grade III errors are those that prevent the quoted paper from being located. Published online: March 10, 2010