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A comparison between novice and elite cyclists movement stability during cycling
Winter, Lachlan Grimshaw, Paul Bellenger, Clint Crowther, Robert
Winter, Lachlan
Grimshaw, Paul
Bellenger, Clint
Crowther, Robert
Abstract
The Lyapunov Exponent (LyE) is a non-linear technique that analyses stability, which refers to the capacity of systems to mitigate environmental perturbations. Whether elite athletes have an optimised movement stability is contentious. There has been limited research exploring the differences in movement stability using the LyE between elite and novice athletes. The purpose of this study was to compare movement stability between novice and elite male cyclists across a 4000 m bout, using the LyE. Participants completed two sessions of cycling (familiarisation and testing). Inertial measurement units were attached to the head, thorax, pelvis and left and right shanks to measure segment accelerations. The LyE was calculated using five, 100 cycle intervals across the bout. Elite cyclists had greater segment movement instability compared to novices at the head and pelvis in the longitudinal and medio-lateral direction, thorax in the medio-lateral and anterior-posterior direction and medio-lateral shanks. Both novice and elite cyclists demonstrated increased head, thorax and pelvis movement instability across the bout. This increase in instability across the bout may demonstrate the impact of fatigue on movement stability. Future research needs to now examine movement stability in the velodrome and explore the correlation between movement stability and aerodynamic drag.
Keywords
movement variability, stability, Lyapunov Exponent, cycling
Date
2025
Type
Journal article
Journal
Journal of Sports Sciences
Book
Volume
43
Issue
10
Page Range
995-1004
Article Number
ACU Department
School of Behavioural and Health Sciences
Faculty of Health Sciences
Faculty of Health Sciences
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
Published as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
License
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
File Access
Open
Notes
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.