Analysis of the Upper Limitation of the Most Convenient Cadence Range in Cycling Using an Equivalent Moment Based Cost Function

Giacomo Palmieri, Monica Tiboni and Giovanni Legnani
Additional contact information
Giacomo Palmieri: Department of Industrial Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, Polytechnic University of Marche, Via Brecce Bianche, 60131 Ancona, Italy
Monica Tiboni: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Brescia, Via Branze, 38, 25123 Brescia, Italy
Giovanni Legnani: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Brescia, Via Branze, 38, 25123 Brescia, Italy

Mathematics, 2020, vol. 8, issue 11, 1-16

Abstract: The article presents the study of the pedalling rates obtained by minimizing a cost function based on a kinetic approach and which can be estimated with more easily achievable experimental data as input than other cost functions. Simulations based on data available in the literature were used to compare the cadences obtained by minimizing well-known joint moment-based cost functions and the proposed cost function. The influence of the power output and of the body mass index on the pedalling rates that minimize the cost function was investigated. Experimental tests performed by four competitive cyclists in the field were used as comparison for the results based on simulations. From simulations emerged that results obtained with the cost function proposed in this work were similar to those based on the absolute average joint moments. We found that the upper limit of the more convenient pedalling rate range decreases linearly with the body mass index, while it increases non-linearly with power output. Furthermore, a polynomial regression of the correlation of the pedalling rate obtained through the method and body mass index and power was found. Experimental results confirmed that the proposed model, finding an approximation of the minimum of muscular effort (not including negative muscular work), is able to estimate the upper limit of an optimal range of cadence. All tested cyclists freely choose to pedal at a cadence under this limit.

Keywords: cycling biomechanics; pedalling rate; kinetic model; mathematical modelling of dynamic systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/8/11/1947/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/8/11/1947/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:8:y:2020:i:11:p:1947-:d:439718

Access Statistics for this article

Mathematics is currently edited by Ms. Emma He

More articles in Mathematics from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().