Movement variation and efficiency of traditional vs standup cycling in sprints : a pilot study

• Main Author: See, Edzel Khai Wee
• Other Authors: Kee Ying Hwa
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Science
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/73825
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

With the growth in cycling population throughout the recent years, there has been a gradual shift within the population itself: leisure to competitive cycling scene. Many cycling research studies were conducted to target and benefit mainly the competitive cyclists. Despite this shift, there are limited studies that focus on cyclists, who are in the midst of this transition. In addition, cycling related studies conducted on the general cycling population often did not take into account movement variation and stability. The aim of this pilot study is to provide an insight to those cyclists, who are in the midst of this transition and to serve as a reference for future related studies. It was hypothesized that standing up cycling will be more beneficial as compared to traditional cycling, in terms of movement variation, stability, cycling efficiency and performance. Motion analysis software (Kinovea) was used to collect and analyze movement variation and stability, while power output readings from MCE, heart rate readings and blood samples were taken to compare differences on performance and cycling efficiency between standing up and traditional cycling. There was a noticeable trend, indicating that standing up cycling during sprints resulted in lower BLCs and high power output. Traditional cycling resulted in lower movement variations and better movement stability. In conclusion, this pilot study gave insights on the various aspects of cycling performance while taking into account movement variability, stability and it serves as a reference with documented limitations of the protocol and analysis procedure while highlighting noticeable trend to narrow the scope and conduct further analysis in future related studies.