To optimally enhance muscular strength or other target benefit, physical activity guidelines prioritize age and health condition to determine intensity, exercise/rest intervals, total training period and tool resistance (or stiffness), which have considerable impact. However, online monitoring of parameters is usually hardly available, even in sophisticated exercise equipment. Instead, exercises are performed with non-instrumented simple tools, such as soft balls, resistance bands or tools with mechanically variable resistance that can only be used to perform maximal muslce contractions without overseeing timing constraints.
To overcome the above mentioned limitations, and aimed at improving muscle strength, engagement and exercise performance, in this project we integrate EMG biofeedback into a game-based isometric training system for guiding and evaluating muscle activation. The EMG biofeedback exergames enable users to control in real time the behavior of games´ main character based on his muscle force and timing of contractions, estimated from an EMG signal. The exergames provide visual, tactile and audio feedback and can be programed to allow exercising at a certain muscle contraction frequency (work-rest timing), duration and intensity (maximal voluntary isometric contraction). The biofeedback exergame system also evaluates exercise performance, in terms of muscle contraction duration and relative effort during work and rest intervals, and enables users to upload the results in a cloud database to make then accessible to healthcare providers through an API.
Project Leader: Dra. Nadia Vanessa Garcia Hernandez
Email: nadia.hernandez@cinvestav.edu.mx Tel. (844)438-96-00 Ext. 8513
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