Evaluating the structure of skeletal muscle excitation and co-ordination to understand performance limits during cycling in humans

A hallmark of human movement is its variability, reflected in normal fluctuations in motor performance that occur across multiple repetitions of a task (e.g. stride-to-stride, pedal cycle-to-pedal cycle). To better understand how skeletal muscles are recruited for different movement tasks it is therefore necessary to consider how excitation and coordination fluctuate across repeated movement cycles. This talk will therefore review the application of non-linear analysis of individual muscle excitation and multi-muscle coordination patterns, to quantify the structure (temporal organisation of variability) of muscle recruitment. There will be a particular focus on cycling in humans, considering responses to alterations in mechanical task demands such as pedalling cadence and power output.