Year: 2010
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Swimming performance is primarily judged on the overall time taken for a swimmer to\ncomplete a specified distance performing a stroke that complies with current\nregulations defined by the Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA), the\nInternational governing body of swimming. There are three contributing factors to this\noverall time; the start, free swimming and turns. The contribution of each of these\nfactors is event dependent; for example, in a 50m event there are no turns, however,\nthe start can be a significant contributor. To improve overall performance each of these\ncomponents should be optimised in terms of skill and execution.\nThis thesis details the research undertaken towards improving performance-related\nfeedback in swimming. The research included collaboration with British Swimming, the\nnational governing body for swimming in the U.K., to drive the requirements and\ndirection of research. An evaluation of current methods of swimming analysis\nidentified a capability gap in real-time, quantitative feedback. A number of components\nwere developed to produce an integrated system for comprehensive swim performance\nanalysis in all phases of the swim, i.e. starts, free swimming and turns. These\ncomponents were developed to satisfy two types of stakeholder requirements. Firstly,\nthe measurement requirements, i.e. what does the end user want to measure? Secondly,\nthe process requirements, i.e. how would these measurements be achieved? The\ncomponents developed in this research worked towards new technologies to facilitate\na wider range of measurement parameters using automated methods as well as the\napplication of technologies to facilitate the automation of current techniques. The\ndevelopment of the system is presented in detail and the application of these\ntechnologies is presented in case studies for starts, free swimming and turns.\nIt was found that developed components were able to provide useful data indicating\nlevels of performance in all aspects of swimming, i.e. starts, free swimming and turns.\nFor the starts, an integrated solution of vision, force plate technology and a wireless \niii\nnode enabled greater insight into overall performance and quantitative measurements\nof performance to be captured. Force profiles could easily identify differences in\nswimmer ability or changes in technique. The analysis of free swimming was\npredominantly supported by the wireless sensor technology, whereby signal analysis\nwas capable of automatically determining factors such as lap times variations within\nstrokes. The turning phase was also characterised in acceleration space, allowing the\nphases of the turn to be individually assessed and their contribution to total turn time\nestablished. Each of the component technologies were not used in isolation but were\nsupported by other synchronous data capture. In all cases a vision component was used\nto increase understanding of data outputs and provide a medium that coaches and\nathletes were comfortable with interpreting.\nThe integrated, component based system has been developed and tested to prove its\nability to produce useful, quantitative feedback information for swimmers. The\nindividual components were found to be capable of providing greater insight into\nswimming performance, that has not been previously possible using the current state\nof the art techniques. Future work should look towards the fine-tuning of the prototype\nsystem into a useable solution for end users. This relies on the refinement of\ncomponents and the development of an appropriate user interface to enable ease of\ndata collection, analysis, presentation and interpretation.
Author: Sian Slawson
Language: English
Subfield: Orthopedics and Sports Medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W117872982