Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of newly proposed bicycle’s crank to crank angle setting on the Vastus Lateralis (VL) and Bicep Femoris (BF) muscle activity during cycling. Procedures of Conconi Test were used throughout the experiment for the data collection purpose. The muscles activities were recorded using surface electromyography and software LabChart7. The raw data were further processed in time (Root-Mean-Square, RMS) and frequency (Mean Power Frequency, MPF) domain. It was found that 0° crank to crank setting (similar to conventional crank to crank angle setting) caused the prime mover VL (Normalized RMS = 0.119) to fatigue more than BF (Normalized RMS = 0.102). This setting is expected to decrease the cycling performance. In addition, −5° is the best crank to crank angle setting that causes least fatigue to both VL and BF. In short, to increase the cycling performance by avoiding the fatigue to the main muscles, −5° is the suggested as setting angle for the proposed crank design.
Highlights
Cycling is one of the most famous sport worldwide, which is suitable for all ages and providing a lot of benefits such as good for health and for the environment
The conventional cranks are separated at 180° and were reported to produce minimal power when one of the legs reaches Bottom Dead Centre (BDC) while the other leg is at Top Dead Centre (TDC) [2]
This study involved 10 normal and healthy subjects, which consisted of 5 males and 5 females (age 23.10 ± 0.32 years; weight 57.1 ± 12.84 kg; height 1.63 ± 0.12 m; Body Mass Index (BMI) 21.26 ± 2.52 kg/m2)
Summary
Cycling is one of the most famous sport worldwide, which is suitable for all ages and providing a lot of benefits such as good for health and for the environment. The conventional cranks are separated at 180° and were reported to produce minimal power when one of the legs reaches Bottom Dead Centre (BDC) while the other leg is at Top Dead Centre (TDC) [2]. Those two points so called dead points because throughout the circular motion of cycling, TDC and BDC produce minimum tangential force [3]. The performance of the cyclists was measured based on the level of cyclist’s muscle fatigue. In this research, the influence of the proposed crank on the cyclist muscles fatigue is investigated
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