Data from Kitman Labs reveals that just in professional baseball, annually, there is about $420 million lost in revenues due to player injuries (Moynihan, 2016). The numbers are even higher at school and college level. A 2017 study revealed that at high school level, the estimated “short-term” annual cost of sports injuries is estimated to be around $5.4 billion to $19.2 billion in the U.S. (Fair, 2017, para 2). The costs for the similar category in college is estimated somewhere between $446 million to $1.5 billion annually in the U.S. (Fair, 2017, para 2). As mentioned, these only represent the short-term and immediate costs, and do not calculate the potential long-term costs and/or long-term consequences of injuries.
Further research reveals that existing literature collectively argues that wearable technology has the potential to expedite injury recovery, improve post-performance muscle improvement, and save millions of dollars from public and private funds (Seshadri et al., 2019). Wearable sensors can be used at different performance levels – school, recreational, or athletic - to measure the rate at which the oxygen is delivered back into the muscles and when the muscles are ready to perform again (Seshadri et al., 2019). Historically, recovery programs for muscle injuries mainly focused on lab tests around blood lactate concentration, HR, or maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max) to understand if the injured individual is on the road to recovery or not (Seshadri et al., 2019). However, wearable technology has enabled other methods to shorten the recovery time. Understanding the recovery time and what accelerates it, has recently been enhanced by the use of wearable technology. American Sporting Network (ASN) reported on a particular real-life example where a sensor was sewn into the jersey of a professional player to generate biometric measurements, such as movement profiles to gauge his performance and workload during recovery relative to his peak performance prior to the injury. The datafication of the recovery pattern enabled the physicians to understand the soft tissue injuries and tailor the training programs to optimize performance and speed up recovery (Seshadri et al., 2019). |
Maximizing the performance and safety of athletes, particularly post-injury, regardless of the level of performance, is highly dependent on:
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