Development of a wireless system able to track barbell kinematics during bench-press, deadlift and squat movements

The monitoring of sport activity during the execution of different exercises plays an important role, not only for athletes of high level. The aim of this present study was to build a system able to acquire kinematics data (acceleration and displacement) of the barbell, in a wireless and real time fashion, during the execution of squat, deadlift and bench-press movements. At first, the hardware components were evaluated to obtain a cheap and light system, then an algorithm for the determination of displacement of the barbell from acceleration and angular velocity was developed; to conclude, tests, both in ideal and real conditions, were performed. The acceleration signals obtained for squat and deadlift were really noisy, so it was not possible to determine the displacement because of drift phenomenon. The accelerations obtained during bench-press showed better results and allowed the determination of displacement with an uncertainty of ± 30 cm. The study showed that in uncontrolled conditions, due to the noise, this system is not able to determine the amplitude of the displacement, while in conditions similar to the ideal, as in bench-press, the system is able to determine the displacement though with a low level of accuracy.