Sports and Menstrual Data for the Health and Performance of Rowers: A research-through-design approach

Over the past few decades, there has been a significant increase in the number of professional female athletes. One thing that both professional and amateur athletes can experience is the effects of their hormonal cycles. These hormonal cycles can affect their performance, and in return, their performance can affect their hormonal cycle. However...

Re-designing the interaction of rowers with their menstrual cycle

There are more and more women who participate in sports on a professional level. The Olympic games in 1964, in Japan, have been the first ones where almost half of the athletes participating were female. But still, a lot of female athletes train based on what has worked for men. As in many other fields, there is a research data gap because...

Sensor Technology for Unobtrusive Athlete Monitoring

Designing the veggie transition: A strategy towards a successful vegetarian menu at the biggest Olympic training center in the Netherlands

Floods, long periods of drought, wildfires, and natural disasters are becoming more frequent, in more extreme proportions. Our current food system is a major contributor to this. In particular, the livestock industry. This is due to the amount of land and water that the livestock sector uses, and the emission of greenhouse gasses. In order to...

Cross-Cultural Adaption and Validation of the Dutch Version of the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic Questionnaire in Juvenile Baseball Pitchers

Monitoring the performance and functional status of baseball pitchers’ upper extremity is important in maintaining the athlete’s health and performance. This study validated a Dutch translation of the original English Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic (KJOC) against the previously validated Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) and...

Sex Matters: A Comprehensive Comparison of Female and Male Hearts

Cardiovascular disease in women remains under-diagnosed and under-treated. Recent studies suggest that this is caused, at least in part, by the lack of sex-specific diagnostic criteria. While it is widely recognized that the female heart is smaller than the male heart, it has long been ignored that it also has a different microstructural...

Impact of different climatic conditions on peak core temperature of elite athletes during exercise in the heat: a Thermo Tokyo simulation study

Objectives To evaluate how separate and combined climatic parameters affect peak core temperature during exercise in the heat using computer simulations fed with individual data. Methods The impact of eight environmental conditions on rectal temperature (T re) was determined for exercise under heat stress using the Fiala-thermal-Physiology...

The Rotterdam Athletic Club: Creating a social condenser in the city centre of Rotterdam

With global urbanization, cities all around the world are changing. Rotterdam is expected to grow significantly in the upcoming decades and therefore will experience densification. This densification takes shape in the form of Rotterdam’s high-rise strategy and will have a direct influence on the way residents live in the inner city center of...

An inertial measurement unit based method to estimate hip and knee joint kinematics in team sport athletes on the field

Current athlete monitoring practice in team sports is mainly based on positional data measured by global positioning or local positioning systems. The disadvantage of these measurement systems is that they do not register lower extremity kinematics, which could be a useful measure for identifying injury-risk factors. Rapid development in...

Improving mobility performance in wheelchair basketball

Objectiev:<br/>This study aimed to investigate which characteristics of athlete, wheelchair and athlete-wheelchair interface are the best predictors of wheelchair basketball mobility performance.<br/><br/>Design:<br/>Sixty experienced wheelchair basketball players performed a wheelchair mobility performance test to assess their mobility...

Effects of offense, defense, and ball possession on mobility performance in wheelchair basketball

The aim of this study was to determine to what extent mobility performance is influenced by offensive or defensive situations and ball possession and to what extent these actions are different for the field positions. From video analysis, the relative duration of the various wheelchair movements during team offense/defense and individual ball...

Envisioning athletics design: The new take-off board

Athletics is the sport that arguably requires the highest number of sundry, dedicated products in the world - a complete competition requires at least 55 different pieces of equipment. These products have to uphold the highest standards, sometimes literally; however, every single product has its shortcomings that reflect back on the quality,...

AdaptaBall: The design of a product to train the adaptability of football players

This report contains the process and the results of the graduation project of Ricco Delfos, performed for the company Athletic Skills Method. The title of the project is: Adaptaball - The design of a product to train the adaptability of football players In the past football players trained in general on natural turf pitch, and nowadays mostly on...

GOLD: A training system for track sprinters

This report describes the design process of a training system for track sprinters that gives feedback about the sprint technique in order to make improvements. The graduation project is focused on the interaction for effective feedback (what, how and when) between the system and the athlete and coach. According to the literature research the...