Al-Ragad Analysis of approaches to recovery in sports games research

Purpose: аnalytical аnalysis of рublications on recovery in sports games using the VOSviewer software in the PubMed Database. Materials and Methods. A bibliometric analysis of the PubMed database was conducted to create a dataset of studies as of December 31, 2024. The search phrase used was «recovery in sports games». Publications from 1979 (the date of the first publication) to 2024 were analyzed. The VOSviewer 1.6.19 software was employed for keyword analysis, direct citation analysis, bibliometric mapping, visualization of cluster density, and citation weight analysis. Results: using VOSviewer 1.6.19, 452 scientific publications were identified. The research period was divided into three 15-year segments: 1979–1994 – 8 publications (1,8 % of total publications); 1995–2009 – 59 publications (13,1 %); 2010–2024 – 385 publications (85,1 %). A significant increase in publications was observed after 2010, reflecting the growing importance of this topic in modern sports games. Between 1979 and 2024, 2,015 authors from 1,189 organizations contributed to research on this subject. The most prolific authors included: Krustrup Peter (13 publications; total citation strength 94); Mohr Magni (11 publications; total citation strength 95); Castagna Carlo (11 publications; total citation strength 38); Chamari Karim (11 publications; total citation strength 30); Dellal Alexandr: (9 publications; total citation strength 16). The program identified 1364 keywords. A threshold of 5 occurrences was applied to exclude infrequent terms, resulting in 173 elements visualized and grouped into six clusters. The network contained 5059 links with a total weight of 20803. The most popular research areas revolved around keywords such as «humans», «male», «adult», «athletic performance», «young adult», «soccer», «female», «running», «adolescent», «athletes». Overlay visualization revealed that the latest publications often focus on narrower topics (training processes, training-induced injuries, workload, and performance), while older studies addressed broader issues (physical education and training, doping in sports). Conclusions. An analytical analysis of publications in the PubMed bibliometric database was conducted. A significant increase in publications was noted over the past 15 years. Six clusters characterizing the main directions of scientific research were identified. The bulk of scientific publications focused on identifying factors that reduce performance in training and competition and developing effective recovery approaches (specialized training, massage, dietary supplements, and new technologies). Addressing these issues should be a priority for future research.