Irvine, D., Jobson, S.A. and Wilson, J.P. (2022) Evaluating changes in mental workload in indoor and outdoor ultra-distance cycling. Sports, 10 (5). 67.
Abstract
Whilst increasing mental workload has been shown to have a detrimental effect on cycling performance and more generally to increase the risk of harm, no studies have measured how mental workload changes as a function of ultra-distance cycling, indoors or outdoors. Our objective was to measure the difference in mental workload, as indicated by changes in EEG theta power, components of HRV and psychomotor vigilance and as reported using the ‘NASA Task Load Index questionnaire’, before and after a 5 h indoor ride and outdoor ride completed at 65% of functional threshold power. Results of the NASA-TLX indicated the mental demand of outdoor cycling to be significantly less than that of indoor cycling. There were significant differences in the PVT results between the pre and the post outdoor ride average and median response times. The slowest 10% PVT responses were significantly slower pre than post the indoor ride. There were significant differences in HRV between pre and post outdoor and indoor rides, specifically, in the average RR intervals, RMSSD (ms2), LFPower (ms2), NN50. There were modest changes in indicators of mental workload during an ultra-distance cycle ride. As such, mental workload during ultra-distance cycling is unlikely to be a contributory factor to decreases in performance or to an increased likelihood of accident and injury.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | endurance; cognitive workload; EEG; theta power; NASA Task Load Index; HRV; psychomotor vigilance |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Management School (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 05 May 2022 09:53 |
Last Modified: | 05 May 2022 09:53 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | MDPI AG |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3390/sports10050067 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:186334 |