Smart Leggings Sense Fatigued Muscles #WearableWednesday

Muscle fatigue is always of interest to athletes and I know I’ve been curious lately working out at the gym. Some days I know I’ve overworked some of my leg muscles because they will be shaking as I’m going down the steps. The thing is, what is that tipping point—the place where a muscle is fully engaged without risking injury? Roger Ribas and his team at King’s College London have been doing some research on that very subject, according to MIT Technology Review. They’ve created leggings with stitched electrodes to examine muscle use during workouts. Of course conductive thread doesn’t stretch, so a zig-zag stitch was used to be sure the circuit could flex without breaking. The advantage of this stitched circuit is that it correctly positions the electrodes over the proper muscles. It also allows for testing out of the lab since the data can be collected and relayed using an Arduino microcontroller. Usually muscle testing has to be done with wires or electrodes that are tethered, making real world comparisons for athletes difficult. Runners will tell you that terrain makes a big difference, and in fact, testers for the leggings were asked to run 5k routes on different surfaces with predictable results.

The data clearly shows how the runner’s leg muscles begin to work harder, tire quickly after a minute or two and then get their second wind before tiring again. However, this tiring occurs quickly on sand, less quickly on asphalt, and least quickly on an athletics track.

I say the results were predictable because if you’ve ever tried running on a beach, you know for sure you are going to fatigue quickly. However, what is interesting is seeing the timing between the second wind. For athletes, this is going to have a profound effect on training, as well as Running Related Injuries (RRI). Other uses include prosthetic, robots and anything else that moves on different environments. If you want more details for this project check out the white paper at Cornell University Library. I know you are thinking this is just for sports medicine fanatics, but would you believe a newer item in our shop is actually a muscle sensor? Check out our MyoWare learning guide that will get you started with all you need to know about muscle sensing. It need not be limited to sports either, think of artistic uses like triggering music or even using it to send text messages using your eyebrows. It’s weird science, people!!

biometric_sup-brows-animation-02


Flora breadboard is Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!


Halloween season is here!
Halloween season is here! Check out all the posts, gift guides, and more!

Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 38,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — New Products 10/30/24 Adafruit LPS28 (LPS28DFW) Pressure Sensor – STEMMA QT / Qwiic

Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: New Raspberry Pi Products, 503 CircuitPython Libraries and Much More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

Adafruit IoT Monthly — Halloween, WiLo, and more!

Maker Business – Adafruit Daily — First Solar’s $1.1 billion development of vertically integrated factory in the U.S.

Electronics – Adafruit Daily — Trigger happy oscilloscope?

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !



No Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.