A preliminary study on infrared thermal imaging of cross-country skiers and swimmers subjected to endurance exercise

Abstract

This study was focused on the thermal mapping of skin over the selected muscle zones in two groups of elite athletes fully engaged in completely other sports performing about an hour running effort at individual AT intensity. Two groups of elite male athletes, a group of cross-country skiers (CS; N = 6) and a group of elite endurance swimmers (SW; N = 4), were investigated. Thermal images of sportsmen' body at front and from the rear were recorded before and about 1-2 min after exercise test using camera Flir Systems E60. Functional (heart rate, oxygen uptake, workload) as well as biochemical markers (activities of creatine kinase and lactate dehydrogenase, concentration of lactate and haemoglobin) were also assessed. The marked differentiation in skin temperature distribution in cross-country skiers and endurance swimmers subjected to the same endurance exercise on treadmill was observed. There was significant decrease in temperature in upper body temperature in CS group, while SW group revealed a significant increase in temperature of the lower limbs. The calculated total body skin temperature was also influenced by practicing training of elite athletes. Some significant correlations of physiological, biochemical and morphological parameters (% fat) with average temperature after exercise test were found for different muscle zones in swimmers and cross-country skiers. Statistical analysis showed that workload had the most impact on skin temperature changes, especially in swimmers. The results provide additional information on the muscle work in the different sport disciplines and may be helpful in efficiency evaluation of elite athletes.

Thermography assessment of spastic lower limb in patients after cerebral stroke undergoing rehabilitation

“…The assessment of spasticity revealed functional improvement in gait patterns and better functional activity as measured on subjective scales. Functional improvement can be visible on thermography possibly due to improvement in thermoregulatory processes following better blood flow and heat production as it has been shown that exercises improve efficiency of thermoregulatory processes [27,28]. The results of thermography were interesting, as well.…”

Automatic detection of moistures in different construction materials from thermographic images

“…Therefore, from an image with the pixels representing different temperature values of the surface under study, IRT is a technique with a wide range of applications [26]: (1) civil engineering and buildings [1,15,[17][18][19]22], (2) IRT applied to different types of material [22,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33], (3) industrial applications [34][35][36], (4) environment [37][38][39] and (5) biomedical applications [40][41][42][43]. In the following subsection, a brief review with regard to the most recent IRT works that detect moisture areas affecting the surfaces of different construction materials is described.…”

The comfort of knitted fabrics: interaction of sportswear and athlete’s body

“…Sweating is the main thermoregulatory response by which heat balance is maintained after a rise in body temperature during exercise-induced heat load. Evaporation of sweat from the skin surface has a cooling effect because evaporation is an endothermic process [20]. It is important to consider other factors that could influence differences in skin temperature between body regions [21].…”