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The case study for the Movella Biomechanics Challenge 2023 was about Winter sports. The University of Trento, in Italy, was our main partner for this edition. Together, we defined the concrete parameters each team needs to compute, and which topics need to be discussed in the reports.

The biomechanics of cross-country skiing (XC-skiing) is more challenging than that of other sports activities and movements. In skiing, athletes face various impacts and move at high speeds, on a surface with varying structure and inclination. Nonetheless, the interest in improving performance and prevention of injuries in the sport keeps growing.

A detailed data set with full body motions of skiers is required to tackle the challenges of the biomechanics of skiing. The Xsens Link system based on IMU data provides such detailed body motions. Fortunately, we had the possibility to measure athletes together with the University of Trento which brings the challenge to the next level. This challenge was a unique and valuable opportunity for the participants to contribute to the winter Olympics of Milano-Cortina 2026 (Italy).

There was one main goal, which was to rank the different athletes in terms of performance. Therefore, students needed to compute a performance parameter, based on:

• Smoothness of movement, coordination, and balance.
• Power output of the upper body vs lower body.
• Adopted strategies and track.

The winners: Brockworth Filter – Brock University

In injury rehabilitation one of the parameters that is very much investigated is the power produced during exercise. One of the measures to follow the progress of a patient during a rehabilitation treatment is by looking at the power produced without compromising the form of the movement.

The power of a task is dependent on the velocity that the task is as well as the force generated. In the case of a back squat, if the movement it is done with no weight, a higher velocity can be generated in comparison if the movement was performed with weight. However, both tasks could have the same generated power.

For rehabilitation it is important that a patient can work in several repetitions in which the same power can be generated through all repetitions. So, the participant can perform the movement with the same concentric velocity without compromising the form during the movement.

Therefore, not only it is important to look at the repeatability of the task in terms of the movement kinematics as well as the generated power.

The goals of this project are to (1) develop a method to help a physiotherapy clinic to measure power generated in rehabilitation exercises and, simultaneously, (2) determine the repeatability of the task across repetitions and across sets (of different weights).

The winners: Intelligent Robotics Lab – University of Pavia