Abstract

Top level sport cycling as a long lasting exercise requires precise optimization of athletes energetic expenditure. This expenditure and the level of sport performance in cycling mainly depends on: 1) constraints resulting from geometrical relation between the athlete and the bicycle i.e. athletes position. 2) Constraints related to the kinematics of athletes body, muscular force limitations and energetic limits. Assuming direct application of the simulation results in sport cycling practice the following goals were formulated: 1) simulation of selected real motion of a given athlete and analysis of kinematics and dynamics of motion pattern. 2) Optimization of individual motion cycling technique from the view point of muscular energy cost minimization for selected cycling tasks like: long distance steady state cycling and starting the motion i.e. gaining the speed as fast as possible. The system dynamics equations (of athletes lower extremity and crank) were formulated basing on Lagrange principle. The simulation software package CYCLING was developed on IBM PC XT and MACYSM personal computers. That software enables to perform various simulation cases in interactive way which are focused on optimization of individual cycling performance. Verf.-Referat