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- Fitness and sports performance in badminton athletes: assessment of fitness markers and their relationship with badminton sports performancePublication . Pito, André Rafael de Cabrita; Pimenta, NunoThe current dissertation includes three original investigations focused on the assessment of fitness markers and their relationship with badminton sports performance. The first study of this dissertation is a scoping review and aimed to summarize and analyse the current literature regarding which tests are predominantly used to assess each of the different fitness markers (agility, balance, body composition, cardiovascular endurance, coordination, flexibility, muscular endurance, power, reaction time, speed, and strength) in badminton players. The results obtained showed that only some markers presented some level of consistency in the assessment tools used, while the vast majority lacked consistency and robustness. The second study aimed to carry out an assessment and characterization of the Portuguese national team elite badminton players regarding four markers of fitness (agility, body composition, power, and cardiovascular endurance), as well as biosocial data, and to compare the results with data from the current existing literature. The assessment of fitness markers is still inconsistent and diverse. This makes the process of comparing findings and extracting valid conclusions harder. Working on standardizing fitness testing in badminton players would allow for an improvement in the sport and serve as a basis for deeper and more meaningful investigations in the future. The publication of reference values for elite Portuguese badminton players aims to increase the available literature and may contribute to a more scientific based approach to training while providing accessible tools that can be applied in the field by players and coaches and get valid data concerning their athletic performance. Finally, the third study of this dissertation aimed at analysing the correlation between different fitness markers and athlete’s performance in the Portuguese national badminton team. The main takeaways from this study are the significant correlation between the performance in singles and doubles in both male and female players. Also, a significant correlation was found between mixed doubles performance and body water and Skeletal Muscle Mass (SMM). A negative correlation was also found between lower limb power and mixed doubles performance in female players. The overall conclusion of this dissertation is that there is a shortage and lack of consistency in the literature regarding the assessment of fitness markers in badminton players. It would be important to establish standardized fitness tests useful for badminton players and also to publish reference values for elite players. Not only would it lead to enhance the evaluation process made by coaches and athletes, but it would also contribute to the development of the sport. This dissertation also showed that male and female elite badminton players that play both singles and doubles events have better performance. It seems that, for badminton players, we could not observe a beneficial specialization effect, meaning that, the best players are not specialized in either the doubles or singles event.Furthermore, our findings may suggest a beneficial effect of diversifying the involvement in both singles and doubles competition. Future research is warranted to enlighten this issue. For female athletes who wish to improve their mixed doubles performance, it may be recommended that they emphasize their training on other markers not analysed in this study instead of focusing on increasing lower limb power. Also, elite players who seek a performance increase in the mixed doubles event, should also try to increase their skeletal muscle mass (across all segments) and their body water. We are confident that the findings of our work will help coaches in the process of assessing and managing badminton players fitness levels. Further studies may help to establish more robust knowledge regarding the most important markers for performance and related cut-off values.