Pushing for Gold On Force Application in Bobsleigh and Cycling
Date
2023-07
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Abstract
In many sports, performance is governed by an athlete’s ability to produce force paired with a given movement velocity and, thereby, generate power. The 4-man bobsled push start is an event that requires team effort, and its goal is to maximize sled velocity in the shortest possible time. Fractions of a second can decide the outcome of a race, and off-ice tests designed to assess strength and speed are used to identify the athletes that will perform best. However, the actual contributions of the team members during the push start on ice have not been measured. The objective of the first project in this thesis was to better understand the push contributions of the four athletes in a 4-man team by analyzing the components of the push start. A 4-man bobsled was instrumented to record both sled velocity and 2D push forces as applied to the sled by the athletes during the push start. Push force was observed to decrease quickly once the sled picked up speed, and the execution of the loading was discovered to be a crucial component of the push start that can affect overall performance. In project 2, a prowler sled was instrumented to measure sled velocity and push force in an off-ice push force-velocity test to be used as a training and assessment tool in bobsleigh athletes. Greater force results in greater power output – if the force is applied the right way. In project 3 we studied force effectiveness in cycling, where only pedal force directed perpendicular to the crank is effective i.e., results in propulsion, while forces parallel to the crank have been considered wasted. In our study, we aimed to determine the impact of constrained pedal force direction on force output. Constraining static pedal force to be perpendicular to the crank only was counterproductive and resulted in significantly reduced force magnitude. In summary, this thesis work contributes to the applied study of power output in sports, with instrumented devices aiding the study of force and power output in athletes, novel data, and the proposal for a new training method.
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Keywords
Biomechanics, Sports Science, Bobsleigh, Force Application, Cycling
Citation
Onasch, F. M. (2023). Pushing for gold on force application in bobsleigh and cycling (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.