Effect of Posture on Muscle Activity and Oxygen Uptake in Cycle Ergometer

Yoon-Kyung Park; In-Keol Bang; Young-Joo Kim; Chul Kim; Jeong-Beom Lee; Young-Oh Shin

doi:10.5763/kjsm.2011.29.1.37

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Park, Bang, Kim, Kim, Lee, and Shin: Effect of Posture on Muscle Activity and Oxygen Uptake in Cycle Ergometer

Clinical Article

Korean J Sports Med 2011;29(1):37-42.

Published online: 20 January 2011

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5763/kjsm.2011.29.1.37

Effect of Posture on Muscle Activity and Oxygen Uptake in Cycle Ergometer

Yoon-Kyung Park, MD¹, In-Keol Bang, MD², Young-Joo Kim, PhD³, Chul Kim, MD, PhD³, Jeong-Beom Lee, MD, PhD⁴, Young-Oh Shin, PhD⁴

¹Rusk Rehabilitation Hospital, Seongnam, Korea

²Rapha Medience Hospital, Seoul, Korea

³Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Sanggye-Paik Hospital, Inje University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

⁴Department of Physiology, Soonchunhyang University College of Medicine, Asan, Korea

Received 3 March 2011 Revised 21 April 2011 Accepted 16 May 2011

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This study evaluated the effects of saddle height on the muscle activity and oxygen uptake during bicycling. The subjects were 20 young adult volunteers. Muscle activity and oxygen uptake were measured with the two saddle heights (maximum knee extension of 180^o and 120^o) and at two power outputs (70 and 100 watts, respectively.) The pedaling rate was 40 rpm. The exercise time was 1 minute and the resting time between each condition was 3 minutes. The raw electromyogram activity was measured for 1 minute and was converted to a root mean square value. Oxygen uptake was measured during exercise using the mixing chamber mode. The activities of two flexors (the medial hamstring and medial head of gastrocnemius) increased at the high saddle height and the activities of four extensors (rectus femoris, vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, and tibialis anterior) increased at the low saddle height. The oxygen uptake at the low saddle height was significantly higher than that at the high saddle height. The oxygen uptake positively correlated with the muscle activities of the knee extensors. The muscle activity and oxygen uptake were significantly affected by the postures (saddle heights) in cycle ergometer. The postures should be considered in the exercise test and prescription.

Keywords: Cycle ergometer, Posture, Muscle activity, Oxygen uptake

References

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Table 1.

Muscle activity in maximum knee extension of 180 ^o and 120 ^o at two power outputs (70 and 100 W)

Muscle	Maximum knee extension angle (^o)	Power output 70 W	Power output 100 W
Rectus femoris	180	2,469±886	3,191±1,028
	120	2,743±995^∗	3,580±1,304^∗
Vastus medialis	180	3,618±1,399	5,040±1,883
	120	3,752±1,520	5,691±2,607^∗
Vastus lateralis	180	3,132±908	4,483±1,111
	120	3,284±1,032	4,889±1,460^∗
Medial hamstring	180	2,578±1,023	2,728±1,157
	120	2,071±968^∗	2,487±1,093
Medial head of gastrocnemius	180	3,081±1,393	3,129±1,417
	120	2,009±986^∗	2,251±1,067^∗
Tibialis anterior	180	2,735±1,072	3,008±1,007
	120	3,023±1,193^∗	3,545±1,353^∗

Values are mean±standard deviation (μ Vs).

^∗ p＜0.05, maximum knee extension of 180

^o vs 120

^o .

Table 2.

Oxygen consumption in maximum knee extension of 180^o and 120^o at two power outputs (70 and 100 W)

	Power output 70 W	Power output 100 W
Knee angle 180 ^o	14.1±2.3^∗	18.0±2.5^∗
Knee angle 120 ^o	15.2±2.2^∗	18.8±2.4^∗

Values are mean±standard deviation (mL/kg/min).

^∗ p＜0.05: represents the significant difference in VO₂ between the two knee angles at the two workloads, res-pectively.

Table 3.

Relationship between muscle activities and oxygen consumption for different conditions

VO₂	RF	VM	VL	SUM^†	MH	GM	TA
Power 70 W Knee angle 180 ^o	0.461^∗	0.354^∗	0.396^∗	0.459^∗	–0.170	–0.055	–0.145
Power 100 W Knee angle 180 ^o	0.504^∗	0.319^∗	0.480^∗	0.488^∗	0.117	–0.091	–0.343
Power 70 W Knee angle 120 ^o	0.420^∗	0.591^∗	0.673^∗	0.640^∗	–0.117	–0.294	–0.179
Power 100 W Knee angle 120 ^o	0.465^∗	0.416^∗	0.680^∗	0.583^∗	0.146	–0.277	–0.274

Pearson's correlation coefficient. RF: rectus femoris, VM: vastus medialis, VL: vastus lateralis, MH: medial hamstring, GM: medial head of gastrocnemius, TA: tibialis anterior.

^∗ p＜0.05.

^† SUM: summed RMS values of RF, VM, and VL.

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