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Strength assessment is one of the main fields in sports performance, physical rehabilitation, physical activity, and health. We aimed to compare maximal voluntary isometric contractions (MVICs) and paired voluntary isometric contractions (VICs) of knee extensors between an isokinetic dynamometer (BIODEX) and a portable and lightweight device (DINABANG). From 19 volunteers (age: 28.7 ± 7 years; body mass: 72 ± 10 kg; and height: 173 ± 7 cm) we obtained 114 paired MVIC measures and, from the force–time curves of these repetitions, 22,507 paired VIC measures of knee extensors. We observed “excellent” repeatability for MVICs (ICC:1.00; p < 0.001) between BIODEX (247 ± 79.5 Nm) and DINABANG (247 ± 74.8 Nm), with “trivial” effect (mean difference: 0.12 Nm (0.02%); 95%CI: −0.13 to 0.23 Nm; p = 0.606; d = 0.048). Bland–Altman plots revealed high accuracy for MVIC (bias: 0.12 Nm) and consistent distribution (precision) inside the limits of agreement (−4.81 to 5.06 Nm) and respective 95%CI. “Excellent” repeatability was also observed for VICs (ICC:1.00; p < 0.001) between BIODEX (219 ± 84.1 Nm) and DINABANG (218 ± 84.0 Nm), with “trivial” effect (0.24 Nm (0.11%); 0.08 to 0.11 Nm; p < 0.001; d = 0.100). Bland–Altman plots revealed high accuracy for VICs (bias: 0.24 Nm) and consistent distribution (precision) inside the limits of agreement (−4.5 to 4.9 Nm) and respective 95%CI. DINABANG is accurate, precise, and reliable in torque measurement.

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This study aimed to quantify the relationships among internal training load, wellness, physiological, isokinetic profile, and technical performance and assessed changes before and after a six-week pre-season structured combining physical fitness, small-sided-game and skill-based training program in young soccer players. Forty-five national-level young male soccer players (16.8 ± 0.9 years) were evaluated. There were no significant correlations between the wellness index and the physiological, isokinetic, or specific soccer skill parameters. Moderate correlations were observed between fatigue and stress (r = 0.47, moderate, p < 0.01), fatigue and average muscle soreness (r = 0.38, moderate, p = 0.01), and a large correlation between average stress and muscle soreness (r = 0.53, large, p < 0.01) were presented. All physiological, isokinetic, and technical parameters improved after a six-week pre-season training program (0.1 to −61.0%). Significant alterations in the physiological domain were observed after a six-week period, particularly in the fatigue index of the Bangsbo sprint test, YO-YO IR1 performance, and YO-YO peak La- (p < 0.01; −61.0%, 25.3%, and −19.8%, respectively). As such, the implementation of structured training and the monitoring of stress responses can lead to appropriate adaptation and balancing in the psychological and physical well-being of young national-level soccer players, particularly in the pre-season period.

The assessment of oxygen uptake (VO2) kinetics is a valuable non-invasive way to evaluate cardiorespiratory and metabolic response to exercise. The aim of the study was to develop, describe and evaluate an online VO2 fitting tool (VO2FITTING) for dynamically editing, processing, filtering and modelling VO2 responses to exercise. VO2FITTING was developed in Shiny, a web application framework for R language. Validation VO2 datasets with both noisy and non-noisy data were developed and applied to widely-used models (n = 7) for describing different intensity transitions to verify concurrent validity. Subsequently, we then conducted an experiment with age-group swimmers as an example, illustrating how VO2FITTING can be used to model VO2 kinetics. Perfect fits were observed, and parameter estimates perfectly matched the known inputted values for all available models (standard error = 0; p < 0.001). The VO2FITTING is a valid, free and open-source software for characterizing VO2 kinetics in exercise, which was developed to help the research and performance analysis communities.