Colorado University Athletics
Hyncicova & Newman Take Their Sport Into The Biomechanics Lab
May 01, 2017 | Skiing
Much like the University of Colorado researcher Dr. Rodger Kram and his studies to help chase down the world first sub-2 hour marathon, CU’s Hyncicova and Newman initiate study they hope to be revolutionary in cross country skiing
BOULDER — Headlines leading up to last month's Boston Marathon surrounded the recent notion of shoe companies racing each other towards breaking a sub-2 hour marathon.
Sometime in May, in a road race on an Italian auto racing track, three top professional runners will wear Nike's new Zoom Vaporfly shoe. It is a shoe crafted from tests by University of Colorado post-doctoral researcher Wouter Hoogkamer in CU's applied biomechanics lab.
Breaking a sub-2 hour marathon would be celebrated as big of an accomplishment as Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile barrier in 1954.
Two University of Colorado skiers, senior Lucy Newman and junior Petra Hyncicova, have been working under the tutelage of Hoogkamer and CU professor Dr. Rodger Kram in the same lab, not on the Nike shoe project, but on cross country skiing experiment they hope can have as big of an impact on the Nordic racing world.
Newman and Hyncicova, both studying integrative physiology, are conducting a research project exploring what is the relationship between metabolic cost and added weight on their poles relating to the double-pole technique in Nordic skiing.
"Metabolic cost is energy expended or the amount of energy you use to complete a task," Newman said. "So, this kind of translates to performance. The amount of food you eat, how much you are using of that in order to perform at your best."
"It is always said that the lighter the poles the better, but when you have lighter poles you also need to look at the stiffness of the poles," Hyncicova added. "When you have lighter poles they usually are not that stiff and they are bending when you are pushing to the ground, so we are trying to figure it out if we increase the pole mass just by a little bit, like 50 grams, if it actually will affect the metabolic cost."
The idea for the study was sparked from their integrative physiology classes under Dr. Kram. Kram has collaborated on past projects with Dr. Hans-Christer (H.C.) Holmberg, a professor at Mid Sweden University who has done revolutionary research in Nordic skiing.
Newman started the project on her own and obtained a grant for the study from the Biological Science Initiative on campus. She then brought Hyncicova on board to assist in the project that the two are working on this semester. Hyncicova will carry on next year with a new focus on frequency and its effect on metabolic cost. Newman is set to graduate this spring.
Dr. Kram and Dr. Holmberg pointed Newman in this direction after Hoogkamer had studied the effect of adding mass to running shoes in the same lab on CU's campus.
"Hoogkamer and Dr. Kram had studied the effect of adding mass to running shoes and they found that adding 100 grams to each running shoe increases metabolic cost by one percent, so we are hoping to find a relationship like that," Newman said. "This would be a pretty pivotal study if we find a relationship such as that. It would be important for coaches, athletes and even pole companies going further."
In the lab, Newman and Hyncicova have volunteers on a treadmill with roller skis and poles and they are hooked up a machine to test their metabolic cost, oxygen intake and carbon dioxide output. They have the participants on the treadmill for a lengthy amount of time; 15 minutes of that a warm-up, then a five minute control period with no weight to simulate normal conditions, then four five-minute intervals adding weight each time and one final five minute control period.
They are looking at the rate of perceived exertion in their test subjects in addition to the aerobic and metabolic results.
They hope to have 20 test subjects complete the trial for their research.
"It took a long time to get human subject approval, because Petra will continue on next year with her own study looking up the frequency and its effect on metabolic cost," Newman said. "So, we submitted to the international review board, we had to clump our studies together, so it took a little bit longer. We've done five pilot studies to make sure that our protocol was correct and then we just started testing (in early April)."
A week from now Newman has to submit a paper with her preliminary findings and give an oral presentation on it.
"Research has its bumps in the road and we've definitely had some bumps in the road," she said. "They just hope that we find some preliminary results."
After completing the project and graduating this May, Newman plans to take a year off from schooling before thinking about any post-graduate routes. She would like to start working, getting hands-on experience in the medical world. She says there is a lot that interests her and she doesn't want to be pinned down on one thing at this point, so she'd like to get out and see the medical side of the world.
Hyncicova has one year of school remaining and next year she will also be defending her NCAA classical and freestyle titles. School wise, she is in the integrative physiology concurrent program at CU where you can obtain a bachelor's and master's degree in five years. She will continue on with this research project next year taking a look at the frequency of pole strokes and its effect on metabolic cost. This summer she will be working to obtain her masseuse certification back home in the Czech Republic, as she has plans of starting a career as a physical therapist once her skiing and academic careers conclude.
Sometime in May, in a road race on an Italian auto racing track, three top professional runners will wear Nike's new Zoom Vaporfly shoe. It is a shoe crafted from tests by University of Colorado post-doctoral researcher Wouter Hoogkamer in CU's applied biomechanics lab.
Breaking a sub-2 hour marathon would be celebrated as big of an accomplishment as Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile barrier in 1954.
Two University of Colorado skiers, senior Lucy Newman and junior Petra Hyncicova, have been working under the tutelage of Hoogkamer and CU professor Dr. Rodger Kram in the same lab, not on the Nike shoe project, but on cross country skiing experiment they hope can have as big of an impact on the Nordic racing world.
Newman and Hyncicova, both studying integrative physiology, are conducting a research project exploring what is the relationship between metabolic cost and added weight on their poles relating to the double-pole technique in Nordic skiing.
"Metabolic cost is energy expended or the amount of energy you use to complete a task," Newman said. "So, this kind of translates to performance. The amount of food you eat, how much you are using of that in order to perform at your best."
"It is always said that the lighter the poles the better, but when you have lighter poles you also need to look at the stiffness of the poles," Hyncicova added. "When you have lighter poles they usually are not that stiff and they are bending when you are pushing to the ground, so we are trying to figure it out if we increase the pole mass just by a little bit, like 50 grams, if it actually will affect the metabolic cost."
The idea for the study was sparked from their integrative physiology classes under Dr. Kram. Kram has collaborated on past projects with Dr. Hans-Christer (H.C.) Holmberg, a professor at Mid Sweden University who has done revolutionary research in Nordic skiing.
Newman started the project on her own and obtained a grant for the study from the Biological Science Initiative on campus. She then brought Hyncicova on board to assist in the project that the two are working on this semester. Hyncicova will carry on next year with a new focus on frequency and its effect on metabolic cost. Newman is set to graduate this spring.
Dr. Kram and Dr. Holmberg pointed Newman in this direction after Hoogkamer had studied the effect of adding mass to running shoes in the same lab on CU's campus.
"Hoogkamer and Dr. Kram had studied the effect of adding mass to running shoes and they found that adding 100 grams to each running shoe increases metabolic cost by one percent, so we are hoping to find a relationship like that," Newman said. "This would be a pretty pivotal study if we find a relationship such as that. It would be important for coaches, athletes and even pole companies going further."
In the lab, Newman and Hyncicova have volunteers on a treadmill with roller skis and poles and they are hooked up a machine to test their metabolic cost, oxygen intake and carbon dioxide output. They have the participants on the treadmill for a lengthy amount of time; 15 minutes of that a warm-up, then a five minute control period with no weight to simulate normal conditions, then four five-minute intervals adding weight each time and one final five minute control period.
They are looking at the rate of perceived exertion in their test subjects in addition to the aerobic and metabolic results.
They hope to have 20 test subjects complete the trial for their research.
"It took a long time to get human subject approval, because Petra will continue on next year with her own study looking up the frequency and its effect on metabolic cost," Newman said. "So, we submitted to the international review board, we had to clump our studies together, so it took a little bit longer. We've done five pilot studies to make sure that our protocol was correct and then we just started testing (in early April)."
A week from now Newman has to submit a paper with her preliminary findings and give an oral presentation on it.
"Research has its bumps in the road and we've definitely had some bumps in the road," she said. "They just hope that we find some preliminary results."
After completing the project and graduating this May, Newman plans to take a year off from schooling before thinking about any post-graduate routes. She would like to start working, getting hands-on experience in the medical world. She says there is a lot that interests her and she doesn't want to be pinned down on one thing at this point, so she'd like to get out and see the medical side of the world.
Hyncicova has one year of school remaining and next year she will also be defending her NCAA classical and freestyle titles. School wise, she is in the integrative physiology concurrent program at CU where you can obtain a bachelor's and master's degree in five years. She will continue on with this research project next year taking a look at the frequency of pole strokes and its effect on metabolic cost. This summer she will be working to obtain her masseuse certification back home in the Czech Republic, as she has plans of starting a career as a physical therapist once her skiing and academic careers conclude.
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NORDIC
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