Effects of moving forward or backward on the saddle on knee joint forces during cycling.
The sitting position of a cyclist on the saddle determines the amount of patellofemoral compressive forces and tibiofemoral compressive and anterior shear forces.
This study compares those forces in twenty-one male cyclists at three different positions on the saddle (preferred, most forward, most backward). Right pedal force and lower limb joint kinematics were used to calculate the knee joint forces.
Changes in saddle position result in small changes in knee flexion angles. The results of this study show that changing saddle position does not result in large differences in compressive forces for the patellofermoral or tibiofemoral joints.
The tibiofemoral shear force increased when sitting at the backward position compared to the preffered (19%) or forward (26%) position. It seems that tibiofemoral shear forces are more sensitive for small changes in knee flexion angles. > From: Bini et al., Phys Ther Sport 14 (2013) 23-27. All rights reserved to Elsevier Ltd.
The Pubmed summary of the article can be found here.