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Lower limb kinematic changes during a fatiguing 60 min cycling time trial
Abstract   Peer reviewed

Lower limb kinematic changes during a fatiguing 60 min cycling time trial

Mark Sayers
Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, Vol.17(6, Supplement), pp.150-151
Australian Conference of Science and Medicine in Sport, National Physical Activity Conference, National Sports Injury Prevention Conference (Be Active), 2014 (Canberra, Australia, 15-Oct-2014–18-Oct-2014)
2014
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2014.11.144
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2014.11.144View
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Abstract

Human Movement and Sports Science Public Health and Health Services sustained cycling lower limb movement
Introduction: The predominant movement patterns in cycling are centred around ankle, knee and hip flexion/extension. Importantly, the cycling action also contains lower limb movements in the frontal (e.g. hip adduction/abduction and knee varus/valgus) and transverse planes (e.g. hip and knee internal/external rotation), with some researchers linking these non-sagittal movements to the relatively high incidence of lower limb overuse injuries in road cycling. Our earlier research has indicated increased variation in tibial rotation variability at the mid-drive phase position during sustained cycling, but the quantification of movement variability using discrete analyses may under, or overestimate the degree of variability present throughout the pedal stroke. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to quantify the degree of pelvis and lower limb movement variability during sustained cycling using Normalised Root Mean Square (NoRMS) analyses. Methods: Ten experienced male road cyclists (age 36 ±3.6 years, mass 79.8 ±5.8 kg, and height 1.817 ±0.046 m) performed a 60 min cycling test at a workload equivalent to 88% of onset of blood lactate accumulation (OBLA). Previous testing has indicated that this workload enabled the participants to maximise their work output during the 60 min. Three-dimensional kinematic data (200 Hz) were recorded using a 9 camera infra-red motion capture system for 20 pedal revolutions during the last minute of each 10 min period. Analyses focused on lower limb and pelvis kinematics, with NoRMS analyses being used from angle-angle data to quantify pedal stroke consistency. Results: Analysis of the angle-angle graphs indicated that the participants increased the amount of posterior pelvic tilt by approximately 3 deg during the latter stages of the test, which caused a corresponding 5 deg increase in hip flexion throughout the pedal stroke. The greatest changes in angle-angle data were in the transverse plane hip, knee and ankle graphs. Significant increases in NoRMS data were also found in transverse plane hip and knee axial rotations during the latter stages of the test. Discussion: Our results indicated that changes in pelvis orientation and non-sagittal hip and knee kinematics movement patterns occur during sustained cycling. The degree of transverse plane movement variability also increases at some joints during a sustained high intensity ride. Our results may help explain the high incidence of lower back and knee injury experienced by well trained and high performance cyclists.

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