Museum shows off sport technology
One of Britain's leading museums has launched an exhibition showcasing new sports technology.
Visitors to the three-day Sporting Futures event at London's Science Museum can try equipment designed to improve athletic performance.
Exhibits include an earpiece that monitors movement and a body harness that measures physiological changes during exercise.
Scientists are on hand to explain the new devices, including earpiece inventor Professor Guang-Zhong Yang. His team at London's Imperial College developed it to measure skeletal shockwaves using the inner ear.
Professor Yang said: "If you're sprinting, it can show your tread length and frequency as well as the shockwaves transmitted through the spine."
Previously, this information could only have been gathered in a laboratory.
"With this device you can do it in the field," he said. "It also helps prevent sporting injury, because it picks up potentially harmful changes."
Such detailed information allows athletes to fine tune their performances. He said: "It's a fraction of a second difference between being a champion or not."
Supplied by fitness company Gaiam, the body harness measures body reactions including breathing rate and skin temperature.
Gaiam spokesman Stuart Jackson said versions have already been purchased by universities and football teams. With the device retailing at £1,000 a unit, he added: "Before, you would have had to use four or five devices to give you these same measurements."
