Response to Letter to the Editor: a counterweight is not necessary to implement simple, natural and comfortable single-leg cycle training

Abstract

Dr. Dolmage and colleagues commented on a recent publication titled, “Cardiovascular responses to counterweighted single-leg cycling: implications for rehabilitation.” They assert that a counterweight is not required to facilitate natural single-leg cycling, rather a fixed gear ergometer can also accomplish the same goal. We agree with Dolmage and colleagues that a fixed gear ergometer can facilitate natural single-leg cycling with minimal deviation in the angular velocity of the crank if the kinetic energy of the flywheel is large. We also present some simple comparisons between the two modalities.