PORTABLE INSTRUMENT TO ANALYZE DIFFERENT PARAMETERS DURING LONG PERIOD EXERCISES

Abstract

Introduction: During the study of different kinds of sport activity it is important to evaluate the pressure inside their footwear, together with different characteristics of their movements. In order to get data on real situations, the athlete must be free to execute his movements without restraint. For these reasons we have developed a new type of system composed of a datalogger and interface for different sensors. Methods: The datalogger was equipped with an Hitachi 16bit RISC microprocessor at 20 Mhz, 1 Megabytes RAM, Memory Card, a front end interface to different kind of sensors, optional display and keyboard. The datalogger can be connected to a pair of insoles with 64 FSR pressure sensors, each one and with another 6 different types of sensors. At the moment we have interfaced accelerometers and cardosensors for heartbeats. Under development is a method with which to interface the sensors for the surface EMG. The system contains a radio modem to transfer the data to a central unit (Portable Computer) equipped with software to analyze the data. The system can work at frequencies from 25HZ to 1KHz (depending on the type of sensors connected) and, in order to be synchronized with a video system, has an external trigger. Results: With this kind of system we made tests of volleyball athletes during normal training activity, runners running track events, golf players and skiers. The system can be used in different environments with athletes free in their movements, and we can obtain information about the activity of the foot together with information from accelerations of different parts of the body and the heartbeat. Conclusions: We consider this kind of system very useful in the study of athletes, because of its flexibility, and we think it could give a big advantage during the training and rehabilitation of athletes.