How Will Motion Capture Technology Improve Your Fitness and Health?

The development of high technology-based fitness has emerged from the booming digital healthcare market and has increased consumer awareness of the need for web3 fitness, not only to overcome restrictions but to solve the physiological health problems that arise. In recent years, motion capture is playing an essential role in the fitness sector, it is one of the first technologies that saw a period of rapid growth and expansion, ranging from sports science to medical applications and entertainment. Today’s article will shed light on motion capture and how it helps to improve your fitness and health.

What is Motion Capture?

Motion capture (mocap) is the process of recording the movement of people or objects. The technology originated in the life science market for gait analysis but is now used widely across various industries. The most common types of motion capture technology include passive optical, active optical, markerless and inertial.

Improvement on Physical Performance

How can a person perform to the max? Well, motion capture may offer help. By analysing the movements of the user, areas of improvement can be determined. Motion capture can determine the strengths and weaknesses of a user and is able to assist in adjusting their training accordingly.

According to a previous study, it shows that motion capture has significant improvements in muscle strength, endurance, and balance ability after four weeks of participation in the exercise program.

Improvement on Exercise Posture

Exercises such as shoulder presses, squats and deadlifts are beneficial to health and fitness, but they can be dangerous if performed incorrectly. Many people work out and perform these exercises regularly but do not maintain the proper form or pose.

By using Human Pose Estimation (HPE) and tracking, which is a computer vision task that utilises pose and orientation to predict and track the location of a person or object, it aids users in performing the correct posture for various exercises. Studies have shown that there are significant improvements on posture of dumbbell biceps curl, front raise, and shoulder shrug exercises with the help of human pose estimation.

Significant Reduction in Fatigue and Prevent Injuries

Fatigue influences the way a training exercise is performed and alters the kinematics of the movement. Monitoring the increase of fatigue during sport exercises is beneficial to avoid the risk of injuries.

By identifying movements with the motion capture technology, it is a lot easier to detect when a user is using his/her muscles in the wrong way, when the users’ movements are showing levels of fatigue or when there is a lack of symmetry in motion, muscle strength, flexibility, and mechanics between both sides of the body. These are all significant risks of users getting injured. Active monitoring is therefore important. This way, tailor made programs and training exercises can be made in order to reduce the risk of injury.

On the whole, motion capture technology has evolved from simple, highly restricting, user unfriendly systems to very mobile and specialised ones. Research shows that a compound annual growth rate of 12.12% in the motion capture industry is expected to be seen between 2019–2024. What was once a technology only used for entertainment, is now being widely used throughout various fields.

While the advancement of motion capture technology continues to expand and grow, consumer’s demand for precise, portable, and inexpensive motion capture technology is no longer a dream. Motion capture technology is forecast to offer promising growth opportunities to all the fitness and sports lovers around the globe.