Dr Louise Burnie completed her PhD with the Sports Engineering Research Group at Sheffield Hallam University and the Great Britain Cycling team May 2015 – March 2020, titled ‘The effects of strength training on intermuscular coordination during maximal cycling’. Since she has gone on to work as a Research Assistant at Swansea University and Senior Lecturer in Sports Biomechanics at Northumbria University, and has recently been awarded the International Sports Biomechanics Society (ISBS) Internship Grant. With her career going from strength to strength, we ask Louise to reflect back on her PhD journey in Cycling.
The PhD Journey of Dr Louise Burnie:
After graduating from Imperial College with a first-class honours MEng in Civil Engineering, I worked as a Structural Engineer in large multidisciplinary engineering consultancies for 7 years in London and New Zealand. I returned to university to study an MSc in Sports Biomechanics at Loughborough University, graduating with a Distinction in 2014. I always had a strong passion for sport and have been involved either as a competitor or coach. After working as a structural engineer for 7 years I decided to change career to work in performance sport, applying the skills I learnt as an engineer to sports biomechanics. Following my interest in my research project during my Masters, I was keen to continue research, and specifically in an applied field.
I was very lucky to be successful in being appointed for a PhD with the Centre for Sports Engineering Research (CSER) at Sheffield Hallam University, the English Institute of Sport (EIS), and British Cycling. The PhD was based at the National Cycling Centre in Manchester, and my PhD involved working with the GB track sprinters from junior to podium squads. My PhD investigated the effect of gym-based strength training on sprint cycling coordination and biomechanics. It was a long journey which lasted nearly 5 years and consisted of 5 studies with 55 participants.
The goal of sprint cycling is to maximise mechanical crank power output, and a cyclist’s intermuscular coordination pattern is one mechanism that can influence the maximum crank power produced. Intermuscular coordination is the interaction between muscles that control a movement, so for cycling the sequencing of the leg muscles around a pedal cycle. Gym-based strength training is a key part of a sprint cyclists training programme to increase muscle size and strength. However, the transfer of strength training to sports performance varies. Generally, there is positive transfer to sports performance (i.e., strength training improves performance), but sometimes, there is no effect or even a negative transfer (i.e., strength training is detrimental to performance).
Intermuscular coordination is a mechanism which might explain the varying transfer of strength training to sports performance in two ways. First, muscle recruitment patterns associated with a strength training exercises could inhibit sports performance when expressed during the sport movement, for example, the muscle recruitment pattern for performing a squat is very different to pedalling a bike. Second, improvements in sports performance might only occur if the increase in muscle strength is accompanied by adaptations in intermuscular coordination pattern, i.e., a new coordination pattern is required for the cyclist to be able to use their new muscle strength.
During my PhD we used various pieces of biomechanical equipment to measure cycling performance, biomechanics, and coordination. These included force pedals to measure crank power (outcome measure – as the aim of training is to increase crank power and therefore improve performance) and crank forces. I also used video cameras and motion capture systems to record the movement of the cyclist (kinematics) and their pedalling technique. CSER have developed bespoke software to study cycling biomechanics – CrankCam, which combines the crank force data with the kinematic data from the video camera to calculate the contributions of the hip, knee, and ankle joints to the overall crank power, so we can understand a cyclist’s coordination pattern in more detail.
In addition, I also recorded muscle activity of the main leg muscles using wireless surface EMG sensors, so we could understand when the muscles were active throughout the pedal cycle.
The key findings were gym-based strength training increased maximum crank power – so it was successful. There was a small change in hamstring muscle activation – they were active for slightly longer in the downstroke following strength training, which might be enabling the cyclist to increase crank power. Another key finding was the cyclist’s coordination patterns changed in different ways with strength training, so the cyclists responded individually to the training, which is probably due to the population being elite and well-trained cyclists.
I had the opportunity to be involved in applied sports science projects outside of my PhD. During the Rio Olympic Games in 2016 I was part of the EIS performance analysis team capture service. This involved capturing videos from the live streams for all sports and sending these to the coaches and practitioners working with the athletes in Rio, so they could provide feedback to the athletes on their performance to hopefully get improvements for the next round or match. I also attended a GB academy sprint cyclists’ training camp in Montichiari, Italy where I collected full biomechanical data of sprint cycling on the track. This was a stressful but rewarding experience, which involved the logistics of how to transport and operate the equipment, including an 8 camera Qualisys system, force pedals with Wi-Fi transmission and EMG in a new velodrome, along with managing the data collection within the timeframe available on the training camp around the athletes’ sessions.
During my PhD, I undertook a three-week research trip to Professor Wakeling’s Neuromuscular Mechanics Laboratory at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. I learnt how to use the OpenSim musculoskeletal model of cycling developed by Dr Adrian Lai and Dr Allison Arnold. This was an invaluable experience to learn new skills and experience another countries research culture.
Following the completion of my PhD I worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Swansea University on a joint Applied Science, Technology, Exercise and Medicine Research Centre and the Welsh Centre for Printing and Coating project to develop new products for sport and healthcare which use advanced printing and functionalised nano-carbons (e.g., graphene). I now work as an Assistant Professor in Sports Biomechanics in the Department of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation at Northumbria University. My research still focusses on cycling biomechanics, coordination and performance, and a key area of interest is the female cyclist. This is of personal interest to me, as a female cyclist and aims to address the inequality in sports science research where the majority of studies are conducted on male athletes. Therefore, the findings are extrapolated to female athletes, despite known anatomical and physiological differences. The aim of this research is to investigate the sex differences and the effect of the menstrual cycle on cycling performance, physiology, and biomechanics. This research will provide a sex specific insight into training and performance.
To learn more about this topic, check out Louise’s publications:
To see more of Louise’s publication please refer to her Northumbria Univeristy Staff page, or you can connect with Louise on LinkedIn here.