State-of-the-art review of athletic wearable technology: What 113 strength and conditioning coaches and athletic trainers from the USA said about technology in sports

Abstract

Wearables are a multi-billion-dollar business with more growth expected. Wearable technology is fully entrenched at multiple levels of athletic competition, especially at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and professional levels where these solutions are used to gain competitive advantages by assessing health and performance of elite athletes. However, through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Innovation Corps (I-Corps) training experience, a different story emerged based on pilot interviews from coaches and trainers regarding the lack of trust in wearables, and how the technology falls short of measuring what practitioners need. An NSF I-Corps project was funded to interview over 100 strength and conditioning coaches (S&CCs) and athletic trainers (ATs) regarding the current state of wearables at the NCAA and professional levels. Through 113 unstructured interviews, a conceptual map of relationships amongst themes and sub-themes regarding wearable technology emerged through the grouping of responses into meaning units (MUs). Interview findings revealed that discussions by S&CCs and ATs regarding wearables could be grouped into themes tied to (a) the organizational environment, (b) the athlete, and (c) the analyst or data scientist. Through this project, key findings and lessons learned were aggregated into sub-themes including: the sports ecosystem and organizational structure, brand development, recruiting, compliance and gamification of athletes, baselining movement and injury mitigation, internal and external loads, “return tos,” and quantifying performance. These findings can be used by practitioners to understand general technology practices and where to close the gap between what is available versus what is needed.

Closing the Wearable Gap—Part V: Development of a Pressure-Sensitive Sock Utilizing Soft Sensors

“…The focus of this study was to validate plantar pressure sensor placement, assess the effectiveness of C-SRSs in changes in ground reaction pressure during movement against a pressure mat and force plates, and establish the groundwork for the development of a ground reaction pressure sock. The results of this study indicate three critical pieces of information: (a) high correlations of R > 0.7 in 79% of the 780 individual cell trials between C-SRSs and BodiTrak TM Vector Plate for all participant movement patterns indicating that CSRSs can be used to capture normal ground reaction pressures, (b) R 2 and RMSE values in ARIMA software modeling of C-SRSs are excellent predictors of future sensor data, and (c) that C-SRSs can be integrated into a wearable sock to capture internal foot-shoe interactions. High R positive values in correlating C-SRSs to the BodiTrak TM Vector Plate indicates a positive relationship in reactive changes to pressure.…”

“…The input of C-SRSs data into an ARIMA model revealed high R 2 and low RMSE values (<5%) indicate a high level of accuracy to predict future outcomes. The rationale for the investigation of applying ARIMA to wearable devices was to identify movement patterns and assess the kinetic frequency and intensity to potentially predict injury thresholds of lower limb kinematics.…”

“…Additional research is required for the commercial development of using C-SRSs in a gait wearable. Advancements in both hardware and software are needed to achieve a nearly seamless user experience when integrating sensors into garments during real-time play [2]. Increasing the frequency of data captured, determining the size and placements of sensors, and developing improved user experiences will need to be addressed during the design process.…”

“…The goal of this study was to develop a wearable solution using compressible soft robotic sensors (C-SRS, Stretchsense™ sensors, Auckland, New Zealand) to accurately collect data "from the ground up" as defined by the needs of the Strength and Conditioning Coach (S&CC) and Athlete Training (AT) practitioners who commonly rely upon wearable solutions in sports [1] for decisions about health and safety [2]. The aim of this research series was to extend the "Closing the Wearable Gap" paper series where the previous studies used stretchable soft robotic sensors or stretchable SRS to capture both static movements [3] and dynamic movements [4] of the foot-ankle complex as well as to fully quantify gait cycles [5] all through the validation of goodness-of-fit as compared to 3D motion capture.…”

Perception of Comfort, Fit, and Jumping Performance of Elite NCAA Division 1 Student-athletes: The Effect of Basketball Shoe Design – Part II

“…During a series of 113 unstructured interviews with collegiate-and professional strength and conditioning coaches, and athletic trainers on the use of wearables in training and monitoring their athletes, one of the repeated concerns identified was the negative effects of sport shoes on the athlete's foot/ankle complex (T. Luczak, Burch, Lewis, Chander, & Ball, 2020). Coincidently, the news of Zion Williamson's NIKE basketball shoe blowout (Dator, 2019), led to the question of how do college teams determine basketball shoe selection?…”