INFLUENCE OF FORE-AFT SEAT POSITION AND ROLLING DRAG FORCE ON WHEELCHAIR PROPULSIVE PERFORMANCE

As a mechanical device, the manual wheelchair (MWC) has many design and conception possibilities. Sport users as well as conventional ones have a great interest in knowing the impact of wheelchair settings on propulsive performance. Among them, the fore-aft seat position has been proved to influence upper limb kinematics [Gorce, 2011] and propulsion velocity [Freixes, 2010]. Recent studies also showed that rolling drag force was strongly linked to the fore-aft load distribution [Sauret, 2012], which changes with the seat configuration by modifying the user’s center of mass. The aim of this study is to evaluate the propulsion performance by computing intra cycle velocity and to investigate the influences of both seat position and rolling drag force.