Comparison of kinematic acquisition methods for musculoskeletal analysis of underwater flykick

Abstract

The use of musculoskeletal modeling as a tool for analysing performance sport is increasing. This typically involves simulating an athlete's motion as well as the external loads they experience and assessing muscle activities with respect to the given kinematics. The findings of any analysis are therefore dependent on the accuracy of the kinematics. Furthermore, for sports where the environment directly influences the kinematics, for example swimming, it is preferable to capture the athlete's motion in this environment. For the example of swimming, using typical optical based systems is challenging due to marker occlusions and the reflection of the water, while the frequently used manual digitisation of video data is laborious and time intensive. Inertial measurement units (IMU), however, have been shown to be suitable alternative for capturing gait kinematics.

This paper compares results from a musculoskeletal model of human underwater flykick where the kinematics have been determined from two sources; manual digitisation and IMUs. The model simulates the anatomy of the trunk and lower limbs while motion is prescribed for; pelvic-pitch and pelvis-thorax, hip, and knee flexion-extension. It is found that the knee, hip and pelvic-pitch angles derived from the IMU exhibit close agreement to the manual digitisation process and captures the swimmer's motion well as compared to the respective video frames. The musculoskeletal model was executed for both input types and the observed maximum muscle activities were similar in both trend and mean. It is therefore suggested the multiple IMUs can be reliably employed in determining joint kinematics of underwater flykick

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Identifiers

ORCID for D.A. Hudson: orcid.org/0000-0002-2012-6255

ORCID for S.R. Turnock: orcid.org/0000-0001-6288-0400

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