Submissions

Author Guidelines

General publication standards

1. Authors must certify that their manuscripts are their original work. We are especially sensitive to plagiarism or self-plagiarism. Articles with plagiarism equal to or greater than 15% will be rejected, excluding references. Reviewers will use different programs to detect plagiarism throughout the text evaluation process. Authors who violate this aspect will be sanctioned with a five-year ban from submitting articles to the Retos journal. Authors who have used artificial intelligence must indicate which applications and in which processes and sections they have been used. Likewise, all articles published by the author(s) involved will be withdrawn.
2. Authors must certify that the manuscript has not been previously published elsewhere.
3. Authors must certify that the manuscript is not being considered for publication elsewhere.
4. Authors must participate in the peer review process; that is, they are responsible for responding to the observations, suggestions and comments of the manuscript evaluators.
5. Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of errors.
6. All authors mentioned in the paper must have contributed significantly to the research. It will not be possible to add collaborators/authors once the submission has been made.
7. Authors must declare that all data in the paper are real and authentic
8. Authors must notify the editors of any conflict of interest.
9. Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript.
10. Authors must report any errors they discover in their published article to the Editors.
11. Authors are aware of the publication fee for a normal review which can be found here: https://recyt.fecyt.es/index.php/retos/Cuota Therefore, they agree to pay it in the event of the article being accepted.

Submission of manuscripts

Currently, Retos only accepts manuscripts submitted for evaluation through the Retos web platform, excluding submissions in paper or by email, and which correctly follow the Publication Standards.

To submit a manuscript to Retos, it is necessary to register and identify yourself on the platform as an author, as well as to monitor the status of your manuscript.

All manuscripts submitted for consideration to Retos must be accompanied by a letter to the editor (to be attached as a supplementary file https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1LtetZ7aGlb2_m9kVenTaskyxrcRMnL1D), signed by the authors, stating:• The manuscript is original and has not been previously published, in whole or in part, or in another language, nor is it being considered for publication in another journal.

• If there has been funding related to the work reflected in the manuscript, this is indicated in the text.
• That all authors have read the text, are co-responsible, and that authorship is shared by all.
• That the ethical and deontological principles have been complied with in relation to the people participating in the submitted study.
• That correspondence regarding the submitted manuscript will be conducted with the corresponding author whose name and email are indicated through the platform, and that this person will be responsible for keeping in contact with the other authors for the review and final approval of the article.
• The main reasons and motives why the authors believe that the manuscript should be published in Retos.
• They must indicate that no artificial intelligence has been used in the preparation of the article and must indicate the percentage of plagiarism in the article, excluding references, which does not exceed the 15% allowed by the journal. To do so, a PDF document must be provided that is the result of having passed the article through an anti-plagiarism program.
• They must declare that the author's self-citations are absolutely necessary and essential for the completion of the work, and that there are no ornamental references.

Specific publication standards

1. “Retos” publishes works that are carried out with methodological rigor and that represent a contribution to the progress of any field of scientific physical-sports activity, in one of the following sections:

• Of a scientific nature: basic and/or applied research works.
• Dissemination and/or empirical teaching experiences. Exchange of proposals and experiences developed and researched.
• Quantitative systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses, exclusively. Simple bibliometric analyses are excluded.

It should be noted that according to the quality criteria of journals assumed by our journal since 2006, the percentage of theoretical review articles, out of the total published per issue, may not exceed 25%, that is, at least 75% must be original articles that communicate research results. Likewise, at least 80% of the authors must be external to the editorial committee and virtually unrelated to the editorial organization of the journal.

2. The works must be original and unpublished. Those that have been published in whole or in part, or those that are in the process of being published or have been submitted to another journal for evaluation will not be accepted. It is assumed that all persons listed as authors have given their consent and that any person cited as a source of personal communication consents to such citation. The authors are responsible for any anomalies or plagiarism that may arise from this. We are especially sensitive to plagiarism or self-plagiarism. Articles with plagiarism equal to or greater than 15% will be rejected, excluding references. The reviewers will use the different programs to detect plagiarism throughout the process of evaluating the texts. Authors who infringe this aspect will be sanctioned with a five-year ban from submitting articles to the Retos journal. Authors who have used artificial intelligence must indicate which applications and in which processes and sections they have been used. Likewise, all articles published by the author(s) involved will be withdrawn. For this reason, it will be required that a certification signed and dated by the main author be sent with the article, expressly stating that the attached article is original, unpublished, has not been published and is not being reviewed by any other journal or publication. Likewise, they must indicate that no artificial intelligence has been used in the preparation of the article and they must indicate the percentage of plagiarism in the article excluding references and that it does not exceed 15% allowed by the journal. To do this, a PDF document will be provided that is the result of having passed the article through an anti-plagiarism program. Likewise, they must declare that they hold the legitimate ownership of use of all intellectual and industrial property rights corresponding to the article. They must declare that the author's self-citations are totally necessary and essential for the completion of the work, and that there are no ornamental references. Likewise, they must declare that they accept the publication standards and that the evaluation of the article by the Editorial Team of "Retos" is requested for its publication. Three possible reviewers must be indicated who are specialists in the subject of the article, different from the institution to which the author(s) belong and external to the Scientific Committee of the Retos journal. It is necessary to include the name, institution and contact email of the proposed reviewers.

3. They should be written in clear and direct language, without footnotes. The text of the article must be presented in its final version in clear and direct language, without footnotes, on DIN-A-4 sheets and must have an approximate length of 7,500 words (this is indicative). The manuscript must be justified, with Cambria font, size 11 and single line spacing, with top, bottom, right and left margins of 2 cm, numbering at the bottom centered and page lines. Titles, sections and subsections will be in bold and never all words in capital letters. SEE TEMPLATE in the corresponding language at https://recyt.fecyt.es/index.php/retos/Plantilla

4. Manuscripts must consist of the following parts:

a. The first page must include: title (original language of the article and English, in lowercase, without italics or boldface – when the original language is English it must also be in Spanish-), a summary (original language of the article and English, in lowercase, without italics or boldface – when the original language is English it must also be in Spanish-) which must have a minimum length of 150 words and a maximum of 250, which must reflect the objective of the study, the method, the most notable results and main conclusions. At the bottom of each summary, five to eight key words must be specified (original language of the article and English, in lowercase, without italics or boldface – when the original language is English it must also be in Spanish-), which refer to the content of the work, which must be extracted from thesauri or classifications specific to the field of physical activity and sport. The language in which the work must be presented will be Spanish, English or Portuguese.

b. The full text of the article will appear on the second page. If acronyms are used, they must be explained in parentheses the first time they appear in the text.

c. All tables, figures, graphs, etc. must be placed within the text, in the place that the authors consider they should be, after the first paragraph where they are referenced for the first time. The APA publication standards (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 2009, 7th edition) must be followed for their preparation. Tables must be numbered and titled at the top of them, on the first line without bold or italics. If abbreviations are used, they must be explained at the bottom of the table or figure. Figures must be numbered and titled at the top, on the first line without bold or italics. If they are not original, even if they are by the same author, their origin and bibliographical reference must also be noted. Tables and figures will be numbered consecutively in the text according to their location (table 1 or figure 1), respecting a correlative numbering for each type. They must be composed by the authors in the final way they wish them to appear, avoiding colours whenever possible. Their size will have a base of 8.25 or 17 cm wide and the letters and signs that appear in them must be legible, avoiding empty spaces and making the most of the space occupied.

d. In the case of photographs, their size will have a base of 8.25 or 17 cm wide and a maximum height of 20 cm and they must be sent in a separate file, in jpg format or similar, since there may be problems with the publication of images obtained from the Internet, or delivered in image files that do not provide good quality at the time of the printing process, in which case they will not be published. It is recommended that the photographs be original. The photographs are treated as figures, so the author must adhere to the rules established for this purpose above. In photographs that feature people, the necessary measures must be taken to ensure that they cannot be identified.

The Editorial Team reserves the right to reduce the number of tables, figures and photographs proposed by the author if they are considered irrelevant to the understanding of the text. In this case, the author will be notified of the decision taken.

4. The structure of the text will vary depending on the section to which it is intended.

a. Scientific in nature: basic and/or applied research works. It will consist of an introduction, which will be brief and will contain the intention of the work: general overview of the topic or problem addressed, state of the art or review of the literature, gaps in knowledge, objectives and justification. Material and method: the material used in the work will be presented, its characteristics, selection criteria and techniques used, tools, procedures and limits of the methodology used, providing the necessary data, bibliographical or direct, so that the experience reported can be repeated by the reader (it gives an account of the what, how, with what and for what of the strategy with which the research question was resolved or the objectives were achieved). Results: the observations made with the material and method used are reported, not interpreted. These data may be published in detail in the text or in the form of tables and figures, graphs, diagrams, maps, etc., provided that their use is duly justified. Discussion: the authors will present their opinions on the basis of those results, possible interpretation of them, application to the results obtained by other authors in similar publications, suggestions for future work on the subject, etc. Conclusions. Acknowledgements. Bibliographic references.

b. Dissemination and/or empirical teaching experiences. Exchange of proposals and experiences developed and researched. The text will be divided into all those sections that the authors consider necessary for a perfect understanding of the topic discussed. As a reference, the following sections can be taken into consideration: presentation-introduction, context, teaching approach-experience, most relevant results (differentiating between advantages and problems that have arisen), action decisions for the next implementation, conclusions, bibliographical references and possible appendices.

c. Theoretical reviews. The text will be divided into all those sections that the authors consider necessary for a perfect understanding of the topic discussed. As a reference, they may contain the following sections: introduction (background, current status of the topic), methodology used, results, discussion, conclusions, practical applications, future lines of research, acknowledgements, references and tables/graphs.
6. The preparation of manuscripts must comply with the APA publication standards (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 2009, 7th edition).