A compact biomechanical feedback device for the training of hammer throwers

Abstract

In those elite sports involving fast movements and complex motor skills, like the hammer throw, the infield and real-time biomechanical feedback can be used to improve the training efficiency to facilitate athletic performance. In this paper, we have improved our previous design of a wearable and wireless sensor system for establishing the real-time biomechanical feedback training in the hammer throw as follows: (1) using two inertial measurement units (IMUs) and one load cell to obtain selected biomechanical parameters, and (2) designing a printed circuit board (PCB) to miniaturize the wearable device. The wearable system was developed based on Arduino open-source platform. The current wearable device's physical size was almost half of the previous one. The mean relative error of the calibration equation for a load cell embedded in the system was 0.87%. The wearable system has potential to be combined with artificial intelligence for estimating selected joint angles on upper and lower limbs.