Injuries are among the biggest hurdles to success in elite sport, sometimes disrupting years of training in mere seconds. Pushing fatigue to its limit is often how they happen.
Thanks to University of Alberta research in biomechanical engineering, hockey coaches now have the technology to detect critical fatigue in players before serious injury occurs. Employing wearable inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors, coaches can recognize when a player’s performance is declining.
“Few biomechanical studies have investigated fatigue mechanisms during skating,” says co-author Hossein Rouhani in the study, published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. “None have comprehensively investigated the effect of fatigue on skaters’ kinematics (the study of the motion of points, objects and groups of objects without considering the causes of their motion).”
In the study, 19 subjects were separated into two groups based on ability. Sensors were placed on their skates, legs, pelvis and trunk, and the skaters did laps around an ice rink at a self-selected speed. A machine-learning algorithm then read the multidirectional data, predicting when serious injury was likely to happen.
“Reliable assessment of ice skating during training and matches helps coaches continuously monitor skaters to identify strengths and weaknesses,” say the researchers, “enhancing training effectiveness and preventing fatigue-induced injuries.”