Miguel Ángel Gómez Ruano

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid | UPM · Facultad de Ciencias de la Actividad Física y del Deporte (I.N.E.F.)

Since the analysis of most demanding scenarios (MDS) in basketball has improved the practical knowledge about match demands and possible impacts for the training process, it seems important to summarize the scientific evidence providing useful information and future directions related to MDS. This review assesses the results reflected in the availa...

Context: Athletes are almost 3 times more at risk of experiencing urinary incontinence (UI) than sedentary women, with prevalence rates varying from 10.9% in low-impact sports such as cycling to 80% when engaging in high-impact sports such as trampoline gymnastics. To treat UI, pelvic floor muscle (PFM) training (PFMT) is recommended as a first li...

The objective of this research was to analyze the importance of maintaining the net position in men's and women's professional padel. The data sample was drawn from 2,756 padel rallies (n = 1,434 men's and n = 1,322 women's) in matches played during the 2021 season of the World Padel Tour circuit. The results showed that there was no net exchange i...

Home advantage and referee bias are two sport factors that have been widely studied in the football (i.e., soccer) context. However, the mediating effect of spectators on these factors is not well understood, especially in the Turkish Super League. We examined (a) how variables of home advantage, referee bias, and spectator presence interacted to a...

The study aimed to identify the prevalence and location of injuries, traumas, and musculoskeletal complaints in Paralympic and Olympic volleyball players with different impairments and initial playing positions (sitting/standing); and to identify the predictors of the abovementioned variables using a multivariate CRT model. Seventy-five elite volle...

Aim To quantify and compare the external peak demands (PDs) encountered according to team’s venue (home vs. away) in under-18 years (U18), male basketball players. Methods 12 basketball players had external load variables monitored across 16 official games using inertial movement units (IMUs). PDs were calculated across 1-min and 5-min time window...

Youth football training should ensure proper player development. However, coaches worldwide behave differently during their coaching process. Thus, this study aims to: a) compare the coaching behaviour and training activities of the football coaches from China and Spain, and b) explore the impact of different pedagogy on coach’s behaviour and playe...

The vertical jump is one of the most used testing movements to assess athlete's physical performance and fatigue status in several sports. However, low-cost, portable, field-based, and reliable methods are needed to measure jumping performance. The aim of the current investigation was to assess the validity and reliability of a new photoelectric ce...

Background: Youth football in schools has experienced rapid growth in China. Despite the increase of players engaging in more frequent, intensive, and organized sports training at their early ages, the controversy over early specialization (ES) still exists. This study aims to: a) investigate the training situation of players in the Chinese School...

To quantify and compare the external peak demands (PD) encountered according to game result (win vs. loss), quarter result (win vs. tie vs. loss), and quarter point difference (± difference in score) in under-18 years (U18), male basketball players. Thirteen basketball players had external load variables monitored across 9 games using local positio...

There is a lack of studies investigating youth goalkeepers that implement variables that can allow researchers and coaches to better understand the performances of the goalkeepers. For this reason, the aim of the present study was to identify key performance indicators of youth football goalkeepers both defense and attack. The sample was composed o...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2022.949445.].

This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to determine the pooled effect size (ES) of plyometric training (PT) on kicking performance (kicking speed and distance) in soccer players depending upon some related factors (i.e., age, gender, skill level, and intervention duration). This study was carried out according to the PRISMA guidelines. Four...

A entional neurodiversity is evidenced in the majority of current schools. The role that physical education plays for the inclusion of students with a entional problems in the school is quite relevant. This essay aims to show the effectiveness of sports and physical exercise on the core symptoms of schoolchildren and adolescents with a ention defic...

This research aimed to describe and quantify the stroke patterns profiling professional tennis players by constructing a complex network specifically related to ball bounce locations. A total sample of 16,863 points from 127 Australian Open matches played by 128 male tennis single players were gathered and scrutinized for creating the bipartite ten...

This study aimed to analyse offensive performance during exclusions in an elite female handball tournament concerning the different numerical inequality contexts. All exclusions sanctioned (n = 319) during all matches from 2018 Female Euro (n = 47) were studied using an observational methodology. Teams´ performance variables were analysed via nomin...

Coaches and sports scientists are looking for a way to predict performance in complex team sports such as basketball. However, concerning knowing what type of player’s profile is needed to win the competition, there is not too much information in the literature. Hence, our study had two aims: (i) to identify how the individual game-related statisti...

The aim of the study was to explore the opinion of expert volleyball coaches in high-performance regarding the home advantage effect (playing at home or away) and differences in relation to player's gender (male/female). Materials and Methods: Seven experienced coaches were interviewed analysing and discussing the content of the interviewees' speec...

Importance: Lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) have been shown to exist in young athletes. The use of pelvic floor muscle training as a preventive strategy at an early age may be useful to avoid possible pelvic floor dysfunction in the future. Objectives: The aim of the study was to describe LUTS in underaged gymnasts. We also aimed to evaluate...

Player availability, defined as keeping players injury-free and ready to participate in competition, is extremely important in the current elite team sport scenarios, because it is related to team performance. In fact, individual player availability may be more important than each player being at their individual level of peak performance. However,...

This study quantified average and peak external intensities of various basketball training drills. Thirteen youth male basketball players (age: 15.2±0.3 years) were monitored (BioHarness-3 devices) to obtain average and peak external load per minute (EL·min−1; peak EL·min−1) during team-based training sessions. Researchers coded the training sessio...

The current study proposes the use of Network Science as a complementary tool to analyse how specific and unique the playing style of Chinese football teams is. Departing from all passes made by a team during a whole season, we construct the pitch passing network of each match, where nodes are the different areas of the pitch, and the links account...

Due to the worldwide negative impact on sport of the COVID-19 pandemic declared by the WHO in 2020, the first aim of this study was to analyze the influence of COVID-19 on performance indicators as a natural experiment, according to the moment in time: pre-COVID, COVID and post-COVID. The second aim was to analyze and ascertain the persistence of t...

We introduce a new way of quantifying the performance of badminton players by analysing their hitting sequences. Using the position of players during 3 consecutive strokes, we create length-3 patterns associated to the playing style of each player. Additionally, we extract from the video matches the information about the initiative gained by a play...

This study aimed to compare differences in the match performances between home and away games during pre-and post-COVID-19 lockdown and to identify the key factors to match success with and without spectators. The sample consisted of 1,549 basketball matches including 971 games of the 2019-2020 regular season before the COVID-19 lockdown and 578 gh...

This study aimed to examine the influence of match location, team quality and players’ nationality on technical and tactical performance indicators in elite goalkeepers. The sample was composed by 87 goalkeepers from the English Premier League during five seasons (from 2011/12 to 2015/16). Twenty-four variables were selected in order to characteriz...

The present study aimed to determine which of the neuromuscular status (NMS) monitoring tests (1: Counter-movement jump, CMJ; 2: back squat with additional load) is the most sensitive and effective for evaluating the state of fatigue in futsal players during the preseason. Seventeen professional futsal players were recruited for this study (age: 23...

Purpose Playing styles play a key role in winning soccer matches, but the technical and physical styles of play between home and away match considering team quality in the Chinese Soccer Super League (CSL) remain unclear. The aim of this study was to explore the technical and physical styles of play between home and away matches integrating with te...

Basketball in performance depends on numerous factors, where a stable trend was identified by winning teams with better performances in shooting effectiveness and rebounding. However, there is a need for a better understanding of pre-shot combinations that lead to these performance trends. This study aimed to analyze NBA teams’ game-related statist...

The mass start speed skating (MSSS) is a new event for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games. Considering that the event rankings were based on points gained on laps, it is worthwhile to investigate the pacing behaviors on each lap that directly influence the skater’s ranking at the end of the race. To the best of our knowledge, this is the fir...

Background: Performers' focus of attention, designed to promote either an external or internal focus, has a clear influence on motor performance (for a review, see Wulf, 2013). The benefit of an external focus (EF; concentrating on the intended movement effect) relative to an internal focus (IF; concentrating on the body movement) to soccer kicking...

Video assistant referee (VAR) has been implemented in women's football, aiming to improve referees' decision-making, but its impact has not yet been analyzed. This study intended to explore how the VAR affects refereeing decisions at Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Women's World Cup competitions. The sample includes all 52...

Aim: Describing and measuring different team styles of play during matches is a key step towards a more predictive and prescriptive performance analysis. The current study aimed to identify and measure different defensive playing styles associated with technical-tactical and physical performance indicators in professional football via Principal Co...

Characterizing playing style is important for football clubs on scouting, monitoring and match preparation. Previous studies considered a player's style as a combination of technical performances, failing to consider the spatial information. Therefore, this study aimed to characterize the playing styles of each playing position in the Chinese Footb...

Introduction: Research in sports management shows that players may perform better in order to obtain a higher-paying contract just before signing a new one (Della Torre et al., 2018). Yet there is little published data on players’ performance within this context. Therefore, this study seeks to analyze the performance of soccer players before signin...

Home advantage in team sports has an important role in determining the outcome of a game. The present study aims to identify the soccer game-related statistics that best discriminate home and visiting teams according to the team quality. The sample consists of all 38 matches played by Real Madrid (19 matches at home and 19 away) in the 2018-2019 Sp...

The main aim of this study was identifying the internal demands during competition including the impact of analysis method (i.e., average vs. peak demands). A secondary aim was to analyze the effects of playing time on the internal demands (average and peak). Methods: Twenty-two professional basketball players were monitored during 11 games. The fo...

There is a clear disconnect between the physical activity (PA) health-related bene ts and Physical Activity on Prescription (PAP) role in Primary Health-care (PHC) settings. This study aims to assess the self-perception of nurses and general practitioners (GPs) toward PAP in Madrid PHC settings. From a list of 3,850 GPs and 3,547 nurses, a total of...

Many sports and recreational strength training coaches consider movement velocity essential to improve performance, and velocity-based training has gained attention over the past decade. Furthermore, there is a lack of low-cost, easy to use, and reliable methods to measure movement velocity. Therefore, this current research aims to analyze the vali...

The purpose of this study was twofold: (i) to identify the relationship between shots and rebounded areas in the men and women’s elite handball games; and (ii) to compare the differences by gender. The samples were composed through 48 matches (24 matches, respectively) and 699 shooting sequences (n = 372 for men, and n = 327 for women) from the men...

The purpose of this study was to explore how Chinese Football Super League (CSL) referees' physical performance and decision-making distance varied according to match type and match halves. Data from 107 matches played by top-4 ranked and bottom-4 ranked teams during 2018-2019 CSL seasons were collected. Level of matches was classified into three g...

Given the intermittent nature of basketball and the different demands that occur during playing time that are specific to every level of competition, the ratio of accelerations/decelerations and the intensity level across quarters were evaluated in female elite junior basketball players (n = 48; age: 16.8 ± 0.7 years; height: 1.76 ± 0.07 cm; body m...

Characterizing playing style is important for football clubs on scouting, monitoring and match preparation. Previous studies considered a player's style as a combination of technical performances, failing to consider the spatial information. Therefore, this study aimed to characterize the playing styles of each playing position in the Chinese Footb...

The home advantage effect seems to be related to a more functional aggressive behaviour with an increased performance in rebounds. It has been traditionally considered as an important factor during basketball games that needs to be studied under different scenarios (home, away or neutral locations). This study aimed to analyse NBA team’s game-relat...

Objectives To examine the effects of match-related contextual variables on positional groups and success in the National Rugby League (NRL). Methods Data relating to match location, match outcome, quality of opposition and match type (absolute score differential) from all matches across the 2015–2019 NRL seasons were collected, in addition to 14 p...

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to compare the internal peak demands (PD) of different training sessions and official matches in professional basketball players. METHODS: PD for heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR) and ventilation (VE) were collected during six games and 49 training sessions. Linear mixed model (MLM) was accomplished to ide...

The purpose of this study was to compare external peak demands (PDs) across quarters(Q) in basketball. Thirteen elite, junior, male basketball players were monitored using electronic performance tracking systems. There were studied intervals for different time windows to determine the external PD for distance (m); player load; distance covered in f...

The aim of this study was to examine the interactive effects of situational variables (competition stage, match location, and match outcome) on teams’ technical performance in the UEFA Champion League. Match data of 19 technical actions and events were collected and classified into three groups (variables related to goal scoring, offense, and defen...

Our purpose in this study was to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on home advantage (HA) in sports by comparing European professional basketball games in which spectators were present (pre-pandemic) with "ghost" games in which spectators were absent (during the pandemic). A secondary objective was to analyze how team ability interacted w...

The use of debriefing by 6 elite coaches (9-16 years' experience coaching professional boxers) and 6 professional boxers (minimum 3 professional bouts) was explored via interviews (25-40 minutes). Boxers represented the featherweight, welterweight, and heavyweight divisions. Interview questions were framed around, 1) the use of video and data analy...

The aim of the study was to (i) use an clustering analysis method to classify and identify native and foreign basketball players into similar groups based on game-related statistics; (ii) use the Pearson’s Chi-square test to identify the key clusters that affect whether a team enters the playoffs; and (iii) use the classification tree analysis to s...

The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of the technical and context-related variables of last strokes in rallies on the point outcomes of both men’s and women’s players in elite singles badminton matches. A total of 100 matches during the 2018 and 2019 seasons were analyzed, and the data of 4,080 men’s rallies and 4,339 women’s ralli...

In spite of the negative effects of anger, coaches are often seen becoming angry during games. This is especially worrying in U18 categories. Thus, the objective of this study was to identify the influence that the coach’s anger has on the performance of a basketball team in competition. For this, an ad hoc observation tool was designed, in which 5...

The scoring performance in badminton can reveal important stages during the match and different characteristics according to notational, temporal and contextual-related variables. The aim of the present study was to: (i) analyse the scoring performance dynamics of men's badminton players according to tournament stage (group stage, knockout stage),...

The home advantage (HA) effect has been mainly demonstrated and studied in men’s competitions. Meanwhile, the impact of HA in women’s sports is less established and understood. Its effect has been demonstrated in women’s sports, especially football, basketball, handball, and water polo, but the factors, conditions and real effects of HA on women’s...

The aim of this study was to analyze the effects of different factors on the external peak demands (PD) encountered by elite, junior, male basketball players in games, including the (1) total playing time during games and (2) playing time accumulated directly prior to each PD episode. Workload variables included the PD for total distance, distance...

The current study aims to analyse technical-tactical performance indicators during elite 3x3 basketball games. To do so, the start, development and end of 315 attacking phases were examined using an observational tool during four games of the 3x3 Men's World Cup 2017. The results showed that efficacy from the 6.75 m line and the fast breaks made af...

Ball possession an important key performance indicator (KPIs) in men’s soccer; thus, coaches and analysts have been interested in the technical and physical parameters resulting in different possession statuses. In this regard, this study aims to examine the relationship between match KPIs and ball possession in elite men’s soccer, and identify the...

The aim of this study was to identify playing styles adopted by teams in the Chinese Soccer Super League (CSL) and to investigate their evolution across a 6-season period. Data were collected from 1,429 CSL matches from 2012 to 2017 seasons using the Amisco system. Seventeen technical performance-related indicators and eleven physical performance-r...

The application of technology is designed to improve something, and to optimize and facilitate human work. Currently, new technologies are an essential piece in most professional sports; from those aimed at improving the performance of the athlete, to those designed to verify the result of the competition objectively. Technology is so established i...

The aim of the current study was twofold: (i) to investigate the distribution of the strike positions of badminton players while quantifying the corresponding standard entropy and using an alternative metric (spatial entropy) related to winning and losing points and random positions; and (ii) to evaluate the standard entropy of the receiving positi...

The aim of this study was to identify different profiles of physical activity (PA) behaviors according to the school student’s age stage and their parents’ or guardians education level. Seven hundred twenty-seven students and parents of different educational stages were invited to take part in this study. The participants included, Preschool (1 to...

The technical characteristics of women's basketball may differ from men's basketball, and there is a need to identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that contribute to the success of women's teams. The aim of the current study was to examine and quantify the relationships between technical performance indicators and match outcome in elite wo...