Authors: Lee, J.B., Ohgi, Y., and James, D.A.

(2012). 9th Conference of the International Sports Engineering Association. Procedia Engineering, 34, 795-800.

Commentary by Allan Wrigley

This article is particularly relevant considering the proliferation of commercially available inertial sensor technologies available for coaches, athletes, and sport scientists for use in the daily training environment. A strong argument and rationale is developed for the fusion of these inertial sensor devices with video to ensure that the appropriate information is delivered, interpreted, and applied in a manner that allows for increased rates of performance improvement. People will respond to visual information that they can relate to, and often inertial sensor data just seems like a jumble of numbers or a bunch of jagged lines. By having a visual record of the performance along with the measurements, you are able to get quantitative assessments of the action as well as the ability to relate these measurements back to the performance, which ultimately facilitates learning. A number of interesting examples are presented relating to cricket, Australian Rules football, swimming, and post-injury rehabilitation. Although this is a highly technical area, the article is written as to appeal to a broader audience and highlight the implications for the high performance training and competition environments.

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