6 april 2016

The Department of Physiology of the Universitat de València is working on a study to determine how the way we position our body on bicycles and the improvement of the posture by means od adjustment services, influences the prevention of injuries. Due to the increasing demand for bicycles in nowadays society, it is necessary to know how to prevent future injuries and to understand how the good use of this means of transport can have many benefits for our health, but also to understand the risks.

Researchers from different academic organisations such as the Universidade Federal do Pampa, Brasil; the Université de Reims, France, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.

The study is lead by Jose Ignacio Priego, researcher at the Department of Physiology of the Universitat de València, former student of this master’s degree and currently studying the doctorate in Physiology. Now the project is still experimental.

In this phase, they need a big number of cyclist to participate in the study by doing an online questionnaire, in order to obtain a broader collection of samples and to carry out a more thorough research. Such questionnaire has a length of approximately 10-20 minutes. Any person can participate, as any level of cycling is welcome, from amateur to professional. The links to the questionnaire in the different languages are the following:

English: http://goo.gl/forms/YFSP3Ogd0F

Spanish: http://goo.gl/forms/a6ImGx7PTd

Portuguese: http://goo.gl/forms/JmO8cMvgr0

French: http://goo.gl/forms/8S1uCHvlFM 

In the questionnaire, the participants can indicate their email so that in the future, when the results are published, they can receive them and see their contribution to the science behind cycling.

This study, apart from the results it will provide once it is over, also highlights the researching nature of Physiology and its great contributions to the world of science and to society as a whole. Researching on the position that the cyclists adopt will clarify the appearance of several injuries and enormously help their prevention. Knowing the possible maladies that may appear due to a bad position in the bicycle will prevent us to take risks when we ride this means of transport. Apart from being really useful for our daily lives, it also has many applications in the world of science.