A pilot study on wearable multimodal biofeedback for personalized physical training

Abstract

There is evidence that physical exercise is relevant for a good health status. However, it is still not as widespread as desired, fostering health risks. Biofeedback is a solution to encourage effective physical exercise guided by sensory cues reflecting objective user performance in real-time to both users and personal trainers. This work aims to benchmark the motor effects and usability of a novel wearable multimodal biofeedback system employing center of mass (CoM), angle, or electromyography (EMG)-based training, and personal traineroriented cues. Five healthy participants performed five sessions with each of the three biofeedback parameters received by both users and personal trainers, only received by personal trainers, and conventional training. The results revealed that EMG-based biofeedback improved EMG, angle, and CoM with high satisfaction for the users, which is promising if muscular strength, range of motion, and/or balance improvements are needed. Angle-based biofeedback and personal trainer-oriented cues revealed similar motor effects, but CoM-based training could not improve all outcomes. Future studies should further benchmark the efficacy of biofeedback-driven over conventional training with a larger sample size of participants.