Sport: sneakers that check that you are fit to do an exercise

Anicet Mbida 06:53, May 16, 2022

We all know the bracelets and other connected watches that track our sports performance.

We are now working on sneakers that check that we are well able to do an exercise.

Sports coach shoes that will tell you “watch out!

You force too much, you will have to temporize, rest a little... otherwise you risk having a breakdown.

These are not shoes that talk, just connected shoes that communicate with a cell phone to give the state of muscle fatigue.

And therefore tell you if you are in the best position to do this or that exercise.

How do they know about muscle fatigue?

Like the coaches: they test you!

Before starting a training, they will ask you to do a series of sprints or small jumps on the spot.

And while you're running or jumping, the shoes will measure your strides, the average time spent in the air... They thus manage to deduce if you can give your all or if it's better to take it easy to avoid injury.

Because we know that most accidents occur, precisely, when we are tired and we continue to force.

That's at the beginning of the exercise.

But during?

You can also hurt yourself by going beyond your limits.

That's the next step: developing a sensor that measures muscle stress simply from sweat.

We would wear it as a bracelet or a headband.

And it would start to vibrate as soon as you reach your limits, just before having cramps for example.

It is the engineers of the American Under Armor and KAUST University in Saudi Arabia who are working on these technologies.

They could change us from current sports gadgets (which count steps, distance, which give heart rate, etc.).

We collect lots of figures, but we never really know what to do with them.

With these shoes or this new generation of bracelets, we would have more useful devices.

Real coaches who warn us before we get hurt.