Editorial Policies

Peer review

All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal’s scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.

Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.

Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.

For double-blind review, remove author names, affiliations, acknowledgments, funding details, institution names, and other identifying information from the reviewer manuscript. Provide identifying information separately in the title-page file or submission form.

Decisions and editorial independence

Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.

Editorial decisions are independent of any fee, membership, service or role. An article processing charge falls due only after acceptance and has no bearing on how a manuscript is assessed. An author’s ability to pay is not a factor in any editorial decision.

An editor takes no part in assessing a manuscript they have authored, or one where an institutional, financial or recent collaborative interest would bear on the decision. The manuscript is handled by another editor instead, and the handling editor is not identified to the authors of the manuscript in question.

Authorship and originality

• Authorship. Each listed author must have contributed substantially to the work and to the manuscript, and must approve the version submitted. Contributors who do not meet that bar are acknowledged rather than listed.
• Changes to the author list after submission require written agreement from every author, including the one being added or removed.
• Original work. A manuscript must not have been published before and must not be under consideration elsewhere. Submissions are screened for originality before review.
• Redundant publication. Work that substantially overlaps the authors’ own earlier publication must be declared at submission, with the earlier work cited.
• Preprints are accepted. Disclose the preprint and its DOI in the cover letter; posting one has no effect on consideration.
• Fabrication, falsification and image manipulation are grounds for rejection at any stage and for retraction after publication.

Human participants and athlete privacy

Requirements depend on the participants, materials, data and study design. Participant protection includes people who are physically active and people who are inactive.

• Approval and consent. For human research, report the responsible ethics body's approval or applicable exemption, and informed consent or an authorized waiver, with relevant reference details. Obtain written consent for publication of identifiable material. For animal research, report applicable approvals and welfare safeguards.
• Consent to publish. Written consent is required for identifiable case material, including photographs, video and imaging.
• Athletes are identifiable from very little. A squad, a position, a season and an injury can name a person without a name being used. Authors are expected to reduce the risk of identification through combinations of indirect detail, and editors will ask for changes where that risk is apparent.
• Physiological and device data. Data from wearables, monitoring systems and clinical instruments are personal data. Their collection, consent basis and de-identification must be described.
• Safety. Exercise interventions must report adverse events, dropouts attributable to the intervention, and any stopping rules.

Reporting, data and trial registration

Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript.

Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement. Data and code sharing must respect consent, privacy and applicable access restrictions.

Competing interests

Every author, editor and reviewer discloses financial and non-financial competing interests. Disclosure is not disqualifying; concealment is.

• Commercial research is welcome. Studies of supplements, devices, footwear, wearables and training equipment are within scope.
• Manufacturer funding must be declared, and a study funded by a manufacturer of the product tested must demonstrate independent rights of data analysis, interpretation and publication.
• Performance and clinical claims are held to what the design supports. A statistically significant change is not by itself evidence of a practical or clinical effect, and the manuscript must not present it as one.
• Editors and reviewers recuse themselves where an interest would bear on their judgment.

Use of AI

• Authors. Use of AI tools in writing, analysis or figure preparation must be disclosed at submission, naming the tool and what it was used for. Authors remain responsible for accuracy, originality and every claim in the manuscript. An AI tool cannot be an author.
• Reviewers. Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured.
• Editors. The same restriction applies to editorial assessment.

Corrections and the record

• Correction where an error affects part of an article but not its conclusions.
• Retraction where the findings are unreliable, whether through error or misconduct.
• Expression of concern where a serious question is unresolved and readers should know while it is investigated.

Each notice is published, is itself citable, and is linked to and from the article it concerns. Articles are not removed from the record: the notice is how the record is corrected.

Appeals, complaints and misconduct

1. Appeal a decision. Write to the editorial office with a point-by-point response to the editor’s reasons and any new evidence. Appeals are considered by an editor who did not take the original decision.
2. Raise a concern about a published article. Write to the editorial office with the article and the specific concern. Concerns are assessed confidentially.
3. Investigation. The authors are given the concern and an opportunity to respond. Where an institution is involved, the journal may refer the matter to it.
4. Outcome. The journal publishes a correction, a retraction or an expression of concern where one is warranted, and records the outcome.

Guidelines for editors · Reviewer guidelines · Instructions for authors

Across the journal

Withdrawal

For withdrawal requests and applicable charges, read the withdrawal policy.

Journal pages