The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of bicycle exercise on knee-muscle strength and gait speed in 8 male participants with cerebrovascular accident (CVA). Isokinetic knee-extensor and -flexor strength were measured in both concentric- and eccentric-contraction modes. Fifty-foot walking tests were used for gait speed. After only 4 weeks of stationary recumbent cycling (12 sessions), participants improved eccentric muscle strength of the knee extensors, bilaterally. Walking-speed improvements approached but did not achieve significance with training. Improvement in concentric muscle strength of the knee extensors was observed in the involved limb, although most participants demonstrated a nonsignificant increase in muscle strength in the contralateral limb, as well. No improvements were demonstrated in the knee-flexor muscles. Thus, bicycle exercise serves to improve knee-extensor strength. In addition, these strength improvements might have implications for better control of walking in terms of bilateral improvement of eccentric muscle strength.
Karen L. Perell, Robert J. Gregor and A.M. Erika Scremin
Christina Huy, Simone Becker, Uwe Gomolinsky, Thomas Klein and Ansgar Thiel
Few middle-aged and elderly people get enough exercise from sports or leisure-time physical activity. Therefore, the impact of everyday physical activity on health is a matter of interest. The main objective of this study was to establish whether bicycle use in everyday life is positively associated with health. A sample of 982 randomly selected men and 1,020 women age 50–70 were asked in a computer-assisted telephone interview to provide information including a self-assessment of their health and physical activity. Self-assessed health correlates positively with bicycle use in everyday life (OR = 1.257; 95% CI: 1.031–1.532). Likewise, people who regularly cycle for transport are less likely to have medical risk factors (OR = 0.794; 95% CI: 0.652–0.967). This negative correlation is not diminished when sporting activity is controlled for. This indicates that positive effects of physical activity on risk factors can be also achieved solely by integrating more physical activity into routine everyday life.
Ari de Wilde
The bicycle has a unique status as a moniker of several things: a practical piece of transportation, a sporting tool, the imprimatur of modernity, and a symbol of gender and class equity. 1 Women have been part of the bicycling experience since the machine’s invention in the mid-nineteenth century
Roger Gilles
In the spring of 2012, I was lucky enough to gain access to a trunk load of memorabilia related to 1890s women’s bicycle racing—contracts, telegrams, photographs, publicity materials, letters, and hundreds and hundreds of yellowed newspaper clippings. The owner of the private collection, a
Madison Ardizzi, Brian Wilson, Lyndsay Hayhurst and Janet Otte
“[Bicycles] provide crucial mobility access to markets, healthcare, schools . . . [and] employment opportunities” ( Starkey & Hine, 2014 , p. 3) commissioned by UN Habitat and Overseas Development Institute. Bicycles have been acclaimed by the United Nations and various nongovernmental
Shani Batcir and Itshak Melzer
stimulating commuters to use bicycles instead of cars for short urban trips ( Hartog, Boogaard, Nijland, & Hoek, 2011 ; Mason, Fulton, & McDonald, 2015 ; Ogilvie, Egan, Hamilton, & Petticrew, 2004 ). Consequently, bicycling as a transport mode has rapidly increased worldwide ( Alliance for Biking & Walking
Stephen Harvey, Chris Rissel and Mirjam Pijnappels
contribute to falls include reduced balance, muscle weakness, and gait impairments (for overview, see e.g., Fabre, Ellis, Kosma, & Wood, 2010 ). Rissel, Passmore, Mason, and Merom ( 2013 ) demonstrated that older adults who had a recent history of bicycle riding performed better on static and dynamic
Amin Daneshfar, Carl J. Petersen, Majid S. Koozehchian and Daniel E. Gahreman
failed to show any ergogenic effects. Therefore, CAF may prove beneficial where athletes are required to provide a quick increase in repeated anaerobic performance, such as in bicycle motocross (BMX) racing. The BMX racing is a mass-start bicycle event where riders race entirely in a standing position. A
M. Ann Hall
’s professional sports in nineteenth-century North America—what sport historian Roberta Park called “contesting the norm.” 6 Mostly, these athletes were circus performers, pedestriennes (race walkers), wrestlers, boxers, shooters, natationists (swimmers), baseball players, high-wheel and safety bicycle racers
Daniel H. Aslan, Joshua M. Collette and Justus D. Ortega
; Conley, Jubrias, Cress, & Esselman, 2013a ). Although previous research suggests running can mitigate the age-related decline in walking economy, alternative aerobic exercises that can be performed at a high aerobic exercise intensity, such as bicycling, may elicit a similar metabolic response with less