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Roller ski rolling resistance and its effects on elite athletes’ performance

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Abstract

Modern ski-treadmills allow cross-country skiers, biathletes and ski-orienteers to test their physical fitness in a laboratory environment whilst performing classical and freestyle (skating) techniques on roller skis. For elite athletes, the differences in performance between test occasions are quite small, thus emphasising the importance of knowing the roller skis’ rolling resistance in order to allow the correct comparison between the results of different test occasions. In this study, the roller skis’ rolling resistance was measured on the ski-treadmill’s surface using a roller ski rolling resistance measurement system specially produced for this purpose. The study investigated the influence of significant changes in rolling resistance on physiological variables. The results showed that during submaximal exercise, power, oxygen uptake, heart rate and blood lactate were significantly changed by different rolling resistances, while there were no significant or only small changes to cycle rate, cycle length and ratings of perceived exertion. Incremental maximal tests showed that time to exhaustion was significantly changed by different rolling resistances and this occurred without significant changes in maximal power, maximal oxygen uptake, maximal heart rate and blood lactate, and that the influence on ratings of perceived exertion were insignificant or small.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Professor Bengt Saltin (Copenhagen Muscle Research Centre and Mid Sweden University) for his support during the development of testing methods. Many thanks also go to the athletes who participated in the study. The authors would also like to thank Glenn Björklund (Mid Sweden University) and Robin Johansson (Swedish X-country Ski Association) for their goodwill in warming up the roller skis in the freestyle part of the study. Finally, thanks are also due to the European Union’s regional development fund, which provided financial support for the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Swedish Winter Sports Research Centre, Department of Health sciences, Mid Sweden University, Akademigatan 1, 831 25, Östersund, Sweden

    Mats Ainegren

  2. Department of Engineering and Sustainable Development, Mid Sweden University, Akademigatan 1, 831 25, Östersund, Sweden

    Mats Ainegren, Peter Carlsson & Mats Tinnsten

Authors
  1. Mats Ainegren
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  2. Peter Carlsson
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  3. Mats Tinnsten
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mats Ainegren.

Appendix

Appendix

Results from physiological tests using freestyle (n = 10) and classical (n = 10) techniques in two submaximal workloads and an incremental maximal test. T1 and T2 represent test occasions one and two, with the same pair of roller skis, and T3 is the test occasion with a pair of roller skis with a significantly lower (freestyle, 47%) and higher (classical, 50%) rolling resistance (Mean, SD). T1 vs T2, T2 vs T3 and T1 vs T3 represent the differences (d) and statistics (p) between the three test occasions.

Table 2 Results on oxygen uptake (VO2), heart rate (HR) and blood lactate (B-Hla)
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Table 3 Results on power (P w), cycle rate (CR), cycle length (CL) and time to exhaustion (TTE)
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Table 4 Results for ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) for breathing, arms and legs
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Ainegren, M., Carlsson, P. & Tinnsten, M. Roller ski rolling resistance and its effects on elite athletes’ performance. Sports Eng 11, 143–157 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12283-009-0016-5

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