Fatigue and HIIT cycling

Summary

We are investigating how acute fatigue, accumulated fatigue, and pain affects neurological, cardiovascular, metabolic, and psychological responses during high-intensity interval cycling (HIIT). You will be required to attend the Human Performance Lab for a total of 8 sessions. In the first session, you will perform a maximal cycling test to determine your aerobic fitness. In the following sessions, you will perform various HIIT protocols on the bike. The last 5 sessions will be completed in a row (i.e., you will come to the lab 5 days in a row), and this will help us see how this type of training might affect fatigue and influence your performance.

During these sessions, aside from cycling, we will measure you breathing rate, heart rate, and blood lactate (via fingerprick). We will measure your pain threshold using a handheld pressure device. We will also stimulate your femoral nerve and motor cortex to examine your neural pathways. All of these measures are non-invasive (aside from the lactate measure, which is very minimally invasive) and will cause no or very minimal discomfort.