BACKGROUND: The symptomatic reduction of exercise-induced delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is of great interest in the fields of Sports Medicine and Physical Therapy. At this time, few therapeutic interventions have proven their effectiveness. One of the most promising interventions is compression therapy. The object of this study is tissue flossing, a therapeutic short-term compression method and whether its post-exercise application can reduce the extent of perceived DOMS. METHODS: Participants (N.=17) without any musculoskeletal injuries were recruited from university students. Participants performed an exercise protocol and obtained the intervention subsequently on one of both arms. Participants had to return for a second day to perform the whole procedure again, this time receiving the flossing intervention on the other arm. At both timepoints, their opposite arms served as the control. The primary outcome measure was a patient-reported score on a 100-mm Visual Analogue Scale. RESULTS: The mean value of DOMS of the flossed arm was 42 mm compared to the non-flossed arm was 48 mm. Differences were found to be statistically significant at 24 hours (P=0.036; α=0.05), as well as at 48 hours post-intervention (P=0.035; α=0.05). Effect sizes were dz=0.408 at 24 hours-and dz=0.411 at 48 hours post-intervention. The clean language effect size was 0.66. CONCLUSIONS: Tissue flossing appears to be an effective method for treating DOMS which is slightly less effective but much more practicable than gold standard treatment.

Objectives Transparent reporting of clinical trials is essential to assess the risk of bias and translate research findings into clinical practice. While existing studies have shown that deficiencies are common, detailed empirical and field-specific data are scarce. Therefore, this study aimed to examine current clinical trial reporting and transparent research practices in sports medicine and orthopaedics. Setting Exploratory meta-research study on reporting quality and transparent research practices in orthopaedics and sports medicine clinical trials. Participants The sample included clinical trials published in the top 25% of sports medicine and orthopaedics journals over 9 months. Primary and secondary outcome measures Two independent reviewers assessed pre-registration, open data and criteria related to scientific rigour, like randomisation, blinding, and sample size calculations, as well as the study sample, and data analysis. Results The sample included 163 clinical trials from 27 journals. While the majority of trials mentioned rigour criteria, essential details were often missing. Sixty per cent (95% confidence interval (CI) 53% to 68%) of trials reported sample size calculations, but only 32% (95% CI 25% to 39%) justified the expected effect size. Few trials indicated the blinding status of all main stakeholders (4%; 95% CI 1% to 7%). Only 18% (95% CI 12% to 24%) included information on randomisation type, method and concealed allocation. Most trials reported participants’ sex/gender (95%; 95% CI 92% to 98%) and information on inclusion and exclusion criteria (78%; 95% CI 72% to 84%). Only 20% (95% CI 14% to 26%) of trials were pre-registered. No trials deposited data in open repositories. Conclusions These results will aid the sports medicine and orthopaedics community in developing tailored interventions to improve reporting. While authors typically mention blinding, randomisation and other factors, essential details are often missing. Greater acceptance of open science practices, like pre-registration and open data, is needed. As these practices have been widely encouraged, we discuss systemic interventions that may improve clinical trial reporting.

The purpose of this study was to investigate if there are still deficits in muscle mass or strength capabilities in elite judo athletes with a history of anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) after their return to the sport. Therefore, bioimpedance analysis, 3D-laser thigh circumference measurement and isokinetic dynamometry in a closed kinetic chain were used. The side-to-side differences were investigated in a group of judo athletes 5 years after ACLR (n=17) and compared with a group of healthy judo athletes (n=27). Neither thigh circumferences, nor muscle masses of the lower extremities differed in formerly injured judo athletes compared to healthy judo athletes. In contrast, isokinetic strength testing showed a significantly larger side-to-side difference of peak muscle force in formerly injured judo athletes (p=0.021). They provided significantly lower peak forces with the formerly injured leg than with the non-injured leg (p<0.001). The authors conclude that strength capabilities, but not body composition, remains altered in recovered judo athletes in mean 5 years after ACLR and definitely after their return to sports. This indicates that the focus of rehabilitation protocols and return to sports assessments should focus more on maximum strength capabilities.

Recent work has raised awareness about the need to replace bar graphs of continuous data with informative graphs showing the data distribution. The impact of these efforts is not known. The present observational meta-research study examined how often scientists in different fields use various graph types, and assessed whether visualization practices have changed between 2010 and 2020. We developed and validated an automated screening tool, designed to identify bar graphs of counts or proportions, bar graphs of continuous data, bar graphs with dot plots, dot plots, box plots, violin plots, histograms, pie charts, and flow charts. Papers from 23 fields (approximately 1000 papers/field per year) were randomly selected from PubMed Central and screened (n=227998). F1 scores for different graphs ranged between 0.83 and 0.95 in the internal validation set. While the tool also performed well in external validation sets, F1 scores were lower for uncommon graphs. Bar graphs are more often used incorrectly to display continuous data than they are used correctly to display counts or proportions. The proportion of papers that use bar graphs of continuous data varies markedly across fields (range in 2020: 4–58%), with high rates in biochemistry and cell biology, complementary and alternative medicine, physiology, genetics, oncology and carcinogenesis, pharmacology, microbiology and immunology. Visualization practices have improved in some fields in recent years. Fewer than 25% of papers use flow charts, which provide information about attrition and the risk of bias. The present study highlights the need for continued interventions to improve visualization and identifies fields that would benefit most.

Understanding the provenance and quality of methods is essential for responsible reuse of FAIR data Correspondence separate, essential research products. A vibrant open methods community is needed to champion this, such as exists for open data and open code. FAIR data should increase the opportunities for secondary analysis. Previously, these analyses have been conducted by, or in close collaboration with, the researchers who collected the data, or involved large, well-documented, publicly available datasets, such as population studies or government registries. FAIR data sharing can further expand the number and types of available datasets, while reducing the need for collaboration between the data depositor and the data user or re-user, but this will require changes to data deposition and reuse strategies. We encourage those with relevant expertise who are interested in contributing to principles for responsible data reuse to contact us.