Assessment of the upper body contribution to multiple-sprint cycling in men and women

Summary Correspondence Marie Clare Grant, Division of Sport and ExerciseSciences, School of Social & Health Sciences, Aber-tay University, Bell Street, Dundee, Scotland DD11HG, UKE-mail: marieclare.grant@abertay.ac.uk Accepted for publication Received 25 February 2014;accepted 11 April 2014 Key words intermittent; median frequency; power spectrum;submaximal; surface electromyography The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of repeated cycling sprints onpower profiles while assessing upper body muscle contraction. Eighteen physicallyactive participants performed 8 9 10 s repeated sprints while muscle activity wasrecorded via surface electromyography (sEMG) from the brachioradialis (BR),biceps brachii (BB), triceps brachii (TB) and upper trapezius (UT). Measurementswere obtained at rest, during a functional maximum contraction (FMC) whileparticipants were positioned in a seated position on the cycle ergometer and dur-ing the repeated sprint protocol. Results suggest that mainly type I muscle fibres(MFs) are being recruited within the upper body musculature due to the submax-imal and intermittent nature of the contractions. Subsequently, there is no evi-dence of upper body fatigue across the sprints, which is reflected in the lack ofchanges in the median frequency of the power spectrum (P<0 05).