Guide for Authors

Introduction

Aims and Scope

The purpose of the journal - Sports Medicine and Health Science (SMHS) is to provide a scientific merit-based and high-quality publication platform for all relevant biomedical studies worldwide with the primary focus on sports medicine, physical activity, and exercise-related health sciences. The primary disciplines covered by this Journal - SMHS include, but not limited to: Clinical Sports Medicine, Orthopedics, Preventive Medicine, Rehabilitation Medicine, Physical Therapy; Basic and Translational Sports Sciences including Exercise Physiology, Exercise Biochemistry, Exercise Molecular Biology and Exercise Immunology; Biomechanics; Motor Control and Exercise Neuroscience; Exercise Epidemiology, Gerontology, and Nutrition; and Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Other emphasized topics of interests for the journal SMHS are:

1) Prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of sports injuries in muscles, ligaments, joints, and bones, especially those occurred in elite, professional, or Olympic athletes as well as amateur participants in sports.

2) Prevention and treatment of chronic disease caused by lack of physical activity or improper practice of exercise. SMHS welcomes studies contributing to exercise intervention on metabolic, cardiopulmonary and neuromuscular disorders as well as mental health. Health issues among elderly population would receive special editorial attention.

3) Basic biological research emphasizing cellular mechanisms of exercise effect and consequence of lack of physical activity in the fields of molecular biology, physiology, biochemistry, immunology, neuroscience, and nutritional science.

4) Epidemiology and population research on the effect of physical activity and exercise on health-threatening epidemics due to lack of physical activity on chronic diseases, such as but not limited to obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, sarcopenia, and Alzheimer disease.

5) Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), such as acupuncture and traditional sports (such as Tai-Chi and Qigong) in prevention and treatment of sports injury and other chronic diseases in major vital organs, such as obesity, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke and heart attack.

Types of Papers

Contributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication: Papers reporting original research, Reviews, Letters to the Editor, Opinion papers, Commentary, and other categories deemed appropriate. Authors should ensure to select the appropriate article type from the list of options when making your submission. Authors contributing to special issues should consult with the editor(s) to ensure the appropriateness of submission.

Authors should ensure to select the appropriate article type from the list of options when making your submission. Authors contributing to special issues should consult with the editor(s) to ensure the appropriateness of submission.

Before you begin

ETHICS APPROVAL AND CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE

Manuscripts reporting studies involving human participants, human data, human tissue, or live animals must include:

An Ethical approval statement is required for publishing in the journal SMHS and is placed in the beginning of the methods and again at the end of the manuscript in a list of journal statements. The first Ethical approval statement is placed as a subsection titled “Ethical approval” at the beginning of the Methods section. As a second placement, this same Ethical approval statement is placed at the end of the manuscript before the reference list and is part of a list of journal statements. The Ethical approval statement includes the following 1) informed consent from each participant was collected unless your is exempted by the institutional review board, 2) the study was reviewed and received approval to implement the study by the author’s institution, 3) must include the institution’s name and the required institutional approval numbers given by the institution review committee, and 4) a statement the study was implemented in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

All materials must adhere to high ethical and animal welfare standards. Any use of animals must be based on ethological knowledge and respect for species-specific requirements for health and well-being. A statement indicating that the protocol and procedures employed were ethically reviewed and approved, and the name of the body giving approval, must be included in the Methods section of the manuscript. An ethical approval document showing the approval from the institution’s ethical committee must be uploaded along with manuscript when you submit the manuscript. This is mandatory for a manuscript involving human participants, human data, or human tissue to be moved forward in the publication process. Failing to provide the ethical approval document and the associated statement in the Methods section of the document will result in the rejection of the manuscript.

Consent for publication:

If your research or manuscript contains any individual person's data in any form (including any individual details, images or videos), consent for publication must be obtained from that person, or in the case of children, their parent or legal guardian. All presentations of case reports must have consent for publication.

Conflict of interest

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Authors should complete the declaration of competing interest statement using this template and upload to the submission system at the Attach/Upload Files step. Note: Please do not convert the .docx template to another file type. Author signatures are not required. If there are no interests to declare, please choose the first option in the template. More information.

Submission statement

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that the submission is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that the manuscript’s publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, this manuscript will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder. The submission statement is required when authors submit a manuscript but will NOT appear on published manuscript. Please upload the submission statement on a separate file.

Authors’ contributions

For transparency, we require corresponding authors to provide co-author contributions to the manuscript using the relevant CRediT roles. The CRediT taxonomy includes 14 different roles describing each contributor’s specific contribution to the scholarly output. The roles are: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Roles/Writing - original draft; and Writing - review & editing. Note that not all roles may apply to every manuscript, and authors may have contributed through multiple roles.

Sample CRediT author statement
Zhang San: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software Priya Singh: Data curation, Writing- Original draft preparation. Wang Wu: Visualization, Investigation. Jan Jansen: Supervision. Ajay Kumar: Software, Validation. Sun Qi: Writing- Reviewing and Editing.

Changes to authorship

This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:

Before the manuscript is accepted for publishing: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.

After the manuscript is accepted for publishing: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article accepted for publishing will NOT be permitted.

Register your study

Registration of clinical trials

The registration in a public trial’s registry is required for publication of clinical trials in this journal. A clinical trial is defined as any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects of health outcomes. Health-related interventions include any intervention used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome (for example drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, dietary interventions, and process-of-care changes). Health outcomes include any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events. Purely observational studies (those in which the assignment of the medical intervention is not at the discretion of the investigator) will not require registration.

Registration of systematic review and meta-analysis

The registration in PROSPERO is required in this journal for publication of systematic review and/or meta-analysis. Authors should include the PROSPERO registration number in the methods section of their manuscript. For more information on PROSPERO, see https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/.

Declaration of generative AI in scientific writing

The below guidance only refers to the writing process, and not to the use of AI tools to analyse and draw insights from data as part of the research process.

Where authors use generative artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process, authors should only use these technologies to improve readability and language. Applying the technology should be done with human oversight and control, and authors should carefully review and edit the result, as AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased. AI and AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as an author or co-author, or be cited as an author. Authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans, as outlined in Elsevier's AI policy for authors.

Authors can disclose in their manuscript the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by following the instructions below. A statement will appear in the published work. Please note that authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.

Disclosure instructions

Authors must disclose the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by adding a subsection in the method in the main body of the manuscript, as well as in the acknowledgments statement at the end of their manuscript in the core manuscript file, before the References list.

Statement: During the preparation of this work the author(s) used [NAME TOOL / SERVICE] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the publication

This declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references etc. If there is nothing to disclose, there is no need to add a statement.

Copyright

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement'. Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.

Author rights

As an author, you (or your employer or institution) have certain rights to reuse your work. For more information on author rights please see https://www.elsevier.com/copyright.

Role of the funding source

You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated. Please see https://www.elsevier.com/funding.

Open access

Every peer-reviewed research article appearing in this journal will be published open access. This means that the article is universally and freely accessible via the internet in perpetuity, in an easily readable format immediately after publication.

To provide open access, this journal has an open access fee (also known as an Article Processing Charge, APC) which needs to be paid by the authors or on their behalf e.g. by their research funder or institution. The APC for this journal is USD 980, excluding taxes.

For all papers submitted before the 31st of December 2024, the APC will be waived for authors. Chengdu Sport University will pay to make the article open access.

Language and language services

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit https://webshop.elsevier.com/language-editing/ or our customer support site at http://service.elsevier.com/app/home/supporthub/publishing/ for more information.

Submission to this journal proceeds completely online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via the homepage of this journal (https://www.keaipublishing.com/smhs) you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail. If you are unable to provide an electronic version, please contact the editorial office prior to submission [E-mail: smhs@cdsu.edu.cn].

Additional information

Please move the tables and figures with their caption to the end of manuscript after the reference list when you submit the manuscript. Each figure and table should be placed on a separate page with its caption.

Preparation

Editorial Policies

For information on Editorial Policies for journal publication refer to http://www.keaipublishing.com/en/authors-and-editors/editorial-policies/

Peer review

This journal operates a single blind peer-review process. All contributions are sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. For more information on the types of peer-review, please visit: https://www.elsevier.com/reviewers/peer-review.

SMHS only accepts online submissions. A submitted manuscript is initially evaluated by the Managing Editor to check academic misconduct. Considering the research area of the manuscript, the manuscript is then assigned to one of the Associate Editors for evaluation. When a manuscript is considered unqualified for at least one of the following principles, the Associate Editor has the right to reject formal review: 1) on a topic outside the scope of the Journal; 2) lacking of originality or technical merit; 3) with fragmentary results; 4) is poorly written; 5) fail to provide ethical approval for research involving human/animal subjects or human tissues, and clinical registration for research mentioned in the clinical trials registration section. If a manuscript meets basic requirement, the Associate Editors will then invite at least two independent reviewers with relevant expertise for single-blind peer-review. Taking the reviewers' opinions into consideration, the Associate Editors will evaluate the manuscript comprehensively and then will decide to whether move the manuscript forward in the peer-review process. The Editors-in-Chief will make a final decision. To avoid bias, manuscripts of the editorial board members including Editors-in-Chief, Deputy Editors-in-Chief, Associate Editors and other members are not handled by him/herself in any stage of the review process. If a manuscript is accepted, the Responsible Editors will then be responsible for reviewing the format, English grammar and language of the manuscript before sending it back to authors for revision. There are various publishing roles of editors in KeAi journal, more information can be viewed here.

Use of word processing software

Most importantly, the file is saved in the native format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use line numbering, page numbering (page 1 is starts with the abstract), bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier). Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also the section on Electronic artwork.

To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions of your word processor.

LaTeX

You are recommended to use the latest Elsevier article class to prepare your manuscript and BibTeX to generate your bibliography. Our LaTeX site has detailed submission instructions, templates and other information.

Article structure

Subdivision

Divide your article into several subsections and number the sections. Any subsection may be given a brief heading, for example Ethical approval. Each heading should appear on its own separate line. The journal SMHS is now using a section numbering system. Please use different formats for each tier of headings e.g.

Tier1: 2. Materials and methods;

Tier2: 2.1. Design and participants;

Tier3: 2.2.3. Test-retest reliability.

Essential title page information

Title. Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
Author names and affiliations. Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled. You can add your name between parentheses in your own script behind the English transliteration. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address. Contact details must be kept up to date by the corresponding author. In addition, the corresponding author must have a doctoral degree (e.g. Ph.D.). If the corresponding author does not have a doctoral degree, please provide another co-corresponding author with a doctoral degree.
Present/permanent address. If the corresponding author changes email address after manuscript submission, this change must be re reported to the journal Editorial Office immediately, or if an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' or 'Permanent address' may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.

Abstract

A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself. The maximum length of the abstract is 250 words. The journal SMHS is now using abstract subheadings (Purpose, Methods, Results, Conclusions).

Key words

Authors are invited to submit 3-6 keywords associated with their paper. Words in the title should not be used as keywords.

Abbreviations

Define all abbreviations used in the abstract, main body of the text, figures, tables, and drawings on a separate page to be placed after the title page of the article and titled Abbreviations list. All abbreviations used in the abstract are defined in the abstract. All abbreviations must be defined again at their first mention in the manuscript text even if defined in the abstract. All abbreviations used in tables, figures, and drawings must be defined in the captions and included in the Abbreviations list at the beginning of the manuscript after the title page. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.

For volume over time, the journal SMHS uses “V with dot above (V̇)”, instead of the regular uppercase letter “V”. For example, the abbreviation for maximal oxygen consumption is V̇O₂max; Myocardial oxygen consumption is MV̇O₂; Maximal ventilation is defined as V̇_Emax; peak oxygen consumption is V̇O₂peak. How to put the dot over the V̇O₂max - Type V0307altx (Press the Alt button on the keyboard at the same time press the x button) to get V̇.

For time units, the journal SMHS uses “h” as the abbreviation of “hours”; “min” for “minutes”; and “s” for “seconds”. Symbols of statistical parameters (e.g. p of significance) and abbreviations of statistical parameters (e.g. SD for standard deviations) should be in italics.

Introduction

State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

Material and methods

Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described. For systematic review and meta-analysis, a separate subsection must be included in the methods section, titled “Manuscript Registration”. In this section, authors are required to follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and state that the study was conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidelines. Authors are also required to provide the PROSPERO registration number in this section. For more information on PRISMA, see http://prisma-statement.org/. The NEW Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). https://www.prisma-statement.org/ is preferred.

Several guidelines are recommended by the National Library of Medicine to aid the authors in reporting their studies in accordance with the best practices. For more information, see https://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/research_report_guide.html.

Human Subjects Ethical Approval

If the manuscript submission is a Case Report and appropriate, the authors are asked in the Case section of the manuscript to include a statement which is included in the methods as a subsection and again repeated with the set of journal statements. The following is an example for authors to modify according to their institution.

The Institutional Review Board stipulates that a case report or series (1-3 patients), which describes an interesting treatment, presentation, or outcome and is not subject to the jurisdiction of the FDA. A critical component is that nothing was done to the patient(s) with prior “research” intent. Institutional review and approval and obtaining informed consent are waivered.

For studies involving animals, a statement placed early in the Methods section as a subsection titled Ethical approval is required indicating that animals were housed at (give your temperature) 25℃-26℃ under (give your light – dark cycle) 12h dark and 12h light cycle. Food and water were provided ad libitum during experimental period. All procedures were performed in accordance with the guidelines established by Animal Care and Committee Guidelines of (state the name of your institution). Institution approval numbers are required. This same Ethical Approval statement is again placed at the end of the manuscript before the reference list and is part of a list of journal statements. If the study was registered as a clinical trial, a separate subsection should be included in the method, including registration number and the place (website) of registration.

Authors must disclose the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by adding a subsection in the method. The following points should be clearly specified: the user; the AI technology or system (with version number stated); the time and date of use; the prompts and questions used to generate the text; the parts of the text written or co-written by AIGC.

Results

Results should be clear and concise.

Discussion

This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

Conclusions

The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.

Appendices

If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.

Acknowledgements

Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading the article, etc.).

Ethical approval statement

Original research involving human or animal experiments needs to be approved by an ETHICS committee. An ethical approval statement with an institutional number (if available) is to appear at the end of the manuscript. See the above Ethical approval section for a description of statement content human subject and animal use in original research.

If any part of the manuscript was written using Generative AI, this must be described in Acknowledgments section in an open, transparent, and detailed manner, using the template below:

[Template]

Statement: In preparing this paper, the authors used [name of specific AIGC tool/service] for [purpose of use: such as literature review/data analysis/charting, etc.]. After using this tool/service, the authors have reviewed and edited the content as necessary and take full responsibility for the content of the publication.

Patient’s privacy and consents for publication

For case report and study involving patients from any medical facilities including the use of medical history, tissues samples, and other related materials, a statement of how patient’s privacy is protected and their consents for publication is required by the journal SMHS. This statement should be placed in a separate subsection at the of manuscript. For information on Ethics in Publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see https://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics and https://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/ethics

Authors' contributions

Each author must disclose the contributions and work completed in the study development and implementation and manuscript preparation.

Conflict of interest

Protocol registration

If a study was registered as a clinical trial, a separate subsection should be included in the methods, including registration number and the website of registration. These manuscript registrations requirements are necessary when systematic reviews and meta-analyses are completed and is necessary to meet the requirement for journals in the PubMed database (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/pub/journalselect/). The authors must 1) declare their study followed the PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses (http://www.prisma-statement.org/) and 2) the present study is registered with PROSPERO and must include the PROSPERO registration numbers.

use the NEW Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). https://www.prisma-statement.org

Nomenclature and units

Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other quantities are mentioned, give their equivalent in SI. Authors wishing to present a table of nomenclature should do so on the second page of their manuscript.

Mathematical formulae

Present simple formulae in the line of normal text where possible and use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fractional terms, e.g., X/Y. In principle, variables are to be presented in italics. Powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by exp. Number consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separately from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text).

Artwork

Electronic artwork

General points

Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
Save text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font.
Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times, Symbol.
Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
Provide captions to illustrations separately.
Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.
Submit each figure as a separate file.

A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website: https://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions

You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.

Formats

Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalized, please "save as" or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):

EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as "graphics".
TIFF: color or grayscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.

If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply "as is".

Please do not:

Supply files that are optimized for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
Supply files that are too low in resolution;
Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Color artwork

Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge that these figures will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version.

Tables, Figures, and Drawings

Tables, Figures, and Drawings appear on separate pages with their captions at the end of the manuscript after references, but not in the manuscript text.

Figure captions

Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used. All abbreviations used in a Figure and Drawing must be again defined in the caption for that Figure or Drawing.

Tables

Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article. All abbreviations used in a Table must be again defined in the caption for that Table.

References

Citation in text

Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Citing references in the abstract is not encourage, but if references area used, the reference must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Web references

As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given.

Preprint references

Where a preprint has subsequently become available as a peer-reviewed publication, the formal publication should be used as the reference. If there are preprints that are central to your work or that cover crucial developments in the topic, but are not yet formally published, these may be referenced. Preprints should be clearly marked as such, for example by including the word preprint, or the name of the preprint server, as part of the reference. The preprint DOI should also be provided.

References in a special issue

Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.

Reference management software

This journal has standard templates available in key reference management packages EndNote http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp and Reference Manager http://refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp. Using plug-ins to word-processing packages, authors only need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article and the list of references and citations to these will be formatted according to the journal style which is described below. Before manuscript submission, each reference in the reference list must be manually checked for proper journal formatting and completeness.

Reference style

Text: Indicate references by (consecutive) superscript Arabic numerals in the order in which they appear in the text. The numerals are to be used outside periods and commas, inside colons and semicolons. In the manuscript text when multiple consecutive references are used for one point, do not use hyphenation. Rather, list all references for that point. For further detail and examples you are referred to the AMA Manual of Style, A Guide for Authors and Editors, 11th Edition,(Print ISBN-13: 9780190246556), copies of which may be ordered from Oxford University Press (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/ama-manual-of-style-9780190246556?cc=nl). In addition, the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is required by the journal and must be added to each reference in the reference list if that number is available. An example of a properly presented Doi number is https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smhs.2020.05.006. Please include the prefix https://doi.org/ to the Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Please list all the authors for references with 1 to 6 authors and first 3 authors with et al. for refences with 7 and more authors. Please use sentence case for article titles and proper abbreviations for journal’s title.

List: Number the references in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

Examples:

Reference to a journal:

Seven and more authors
1. Woods JA, Hutchinson NT, Powers SK, et al. The COVID-19 pandemic and physical activity. Sports Med Health Sci. 2020;2(2):55-64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smhs.2020.05.006.

One to 6 authors:
2. Renier SA, Voight AM, Trost EJ, Roberts WO. Exertional calf pain at kilometer five - Finding the cause. Sports Med Health Sci. 2023;6(1):89-93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smhs.2023.10.001.

Reference to an entire book/ebook:

3.Patterson JW. Weedon's Skin Pathology. 4th ed. Churchill Livingstone; 2016.

4. Guyatt G, Rennie D, Meade MO, Cook DJ. Users' Guides to the Medical Literature: A Manual for Evidence- Based Clinical Practice. 3rd ed. McGraw- Hill Education; 2015. Accessed August 15, 2016. https://jamaevidence.mhmedical.com/ book.aspx?bookID=847

Reference to a chapter in a book:

5. Boushey CJ. Application of research paradigms to nutrition practice.In: Coulston AM, Boushey CJ, Ferruzzi MG, eds. Nutrition in the Prevention and Treatment of Disease. 3rd ed. Academic Press; 2013:99-105.

Reference to a website

6. Mayo Clinic Staff. Treating Covid-19 at home: Care tips for you and others. Mayo Clinics. May 25, 2023. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/treating-covid-19-at-home/art-20483273.

7. Most prolific reviewers of 2022. KeAi Publishing. January 4, 2023. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://www.keaipublishing.com/en/journals/sports-medicine-and-health-science/news/most-prolific-reviewers-of-2022/.

Research data

This journal encourages and enables you to share data that supports your research publication where appropriate, and enables you to interlink the data with your published articles. Research data refers to the results of observations or experimentation that validate research findings. To facilitate reproducibility and data reuse, this journal also encourages you to share your software, code, models, algorithms, protocols, methods and other useful materials related to the project. More details about sharing research data can be found at https://www.elsevier.com/authors/author-services/research-data.

Data Linking

If you have made your research data available in a data repository, you can link your article directly to the dataset. Elsevier collaborates with a number of repositories to link articles on ScienceDirect with relevant repositories, giving readers access to underlying data that give them a better understanding of the research described.

There are different ways to link your datasets to your article. When available, you can directly link your dataset to your article by providing the relevant information in the submission system. For more information, visit the database linking page.

For supported data repositories a repository banner will automatically appear next to your published article on ScienceDirect.

In addition, you can link to relevant data or entities through identifiers within the text of your manuscript, using the following format: Database: xxxx (e.g., TAIR: AT1G01020; CCDC: 734053; PDB: 1XFN).

Data statement

To foster transparency, we encourage you to state the availability of your data in your submission. This may be a requirement of your funding body or institution. If your data is unavailable to access or unsuitable to post, you will have the opportunity to indicate why during the submission process, for example by stating that the research data is confidential. The statement will appear with your published article on ScienceDirect. For more information, visit the Data Statement page.

Journal abbreviations source

Journal names should be abbreviated according to
Index Medicus journal abbreviations: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lji.html;
List of title word abbreviations: http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php;
CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service): http://www.cas.org/sent.html.

Submission checklist

The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.

Ensure that the following items are present:

One Author designated as corresponding Author:

E-mail address
Full postal address
Telephone and fax numbers

All necessary files have been uploaded

Keywords
All figure captions
All tables (including title, description, footnotes)

Further considerations

Manuscript has been "spellchecked" and "grammar-checked"
References are in the correct format for this journal
All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print or to be reproduced in color on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print
If only color on the Web is required, black and white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes

For any further information please visit our customer support site at http://service.elsevier.com/app/home/supporthub/publishing/ .

After acceptance

Use of the Digital Object Identifier

The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, the DOI number is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'articles in press' because these articles have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from a document in the journal Physics Letters B): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.059

When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are guaranteed never to change.

Proofs

One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post) or, a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves. Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 (or higher) available free from http://get.adobe.com/reader.

Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site: http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/systemreqs.

If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail, or by post. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately – please let us have all your corrections within 48 hours. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.

Author inquiries

Visit the Elsevier Support Center to find the answers you need. Here you will find everything from Frequently Asked Questions to ways to get in touch. You can also check the status of your submitted article or find out when your accepted article will be published.

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