Leaps and bounds

The spectacle of superstar long distance runner Eliud Kipchoge completing the world’s first sub two-hour marathon has become a defining moment in the annals of human endeavour.

But even before he had crossed the line, there was mounting intrigue and suspicion surrounding his footwear – a radical new prototype shoe with thick foam midsoles that reportedly contained at least two carbon fibre plates for stiffness.

The brightly-coloured trainers prompted a debate about whether the improvement in energy efficiency it gave the Kenyan was so advantageous as to be illegal. Sport constantly adapts to the introduction of new technologies, reflecting wider societal advances and trends – just think of the evolution of the tennis racket – although it may not necessarily end up being in the best interest of spectators, players or governing bodies.

One of those tracing the evolution of sports equipment is Dr Tom Allen, Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering, who said: “In terms of performance, there’s always going to be an argument that it’s unfair if an athlete has shoes that are designed to allow them to run faster.

“But equally, I think people could start to lose interest in sports like running if the times began to level off and we see no more improvements.

“And when you look at the data, there is evidence to show that times in sports like running are starting to level off and we may have started to reach the limit of what we can achieve, and maybe an improvement in technology could help us in passing that limit.”

Most equipment and apparel companies do not make their wares just for the small number of elite athletes, however.

They target the valuable mass consumer market, who want to have the same goods or brands as their sporting heroes in the hope the success rubs off.

Dr Allen said the development of sports equipment has an interesting future.

“We are likely to see improvements in design and materials to improve performance, as well as improvements to make products more sustainable or simply function better for the recreational user.

“For performance, traditionally with sports equipment there was this idea that sports borrowed technologies from other industries.

“Composite materials, for example, saw developments in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s for larger industries such as aerospace and transport, and sports engineers took them and applied them to products like tennis rackets.

“But now we might see more of a shift where sports engineers are developing materials and manufacturing techniques more specifically for the sports equipment.

“The sports brands won’t necessarily be developing the materials in-house, but they may be collaborating with companies that do.”

Dr Allen said the sports industry could become the testbed for the introduction of new materials in place of other vanguards such as aircraft manufacturing.

This is in part because sport brands need to react to what their customers want and may need to quickly adapt designs and production methods for millions of identical sports items, rather than the often slower and more complicated process of building an aeroplane.

“Materials and manufacturing are quite key at the moment: making things more custom, more efficient and, going forward, I think things like sustainability and recycling are going to be important for sports equipment,” Dr Allen said.

Like Kipchoge, elite teams and athletes are looking to their equipment for marginal gains — the notion that the standards in the highest echelons of competition are so close that any small differentiator to give an athlete an edge should be capitalised upon.

Dr Allen said: “A mediocre athlete isn’t going to suddenly become the best in the world just because they have better equipment.

“But right at the very top level, if you’ve got athletes performing very similar to each other, that tiny advantage could make a difference: a slightly better aerodynamic position on the bike or slightly better positioning of feet through the water while swimming.

“If you watch Olympic swimmers in the pool, it can be less than a metre between winning and losing, even over long distances.”

Dr Allen said the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics due to COVID-19 will give footwear manufacturers more time to develop new running shoe designs that adhere to World Athletics’ new rules introduced in the wake of Kipchoge’s achievement. Of course, sportsmen and women do not just put on their newest piece of kit on the day of competition and suddenly break a world record or win a tournament.

They have spent their lives training and becoming accustomed to the latest equipment and clothing and use technology to provide insight on their performance.

And that is where one Manchester Metropolitan project comes in.

Professor Carl Payton, Reader in Biomechanics, is a member of the Sport Science and Sport Medicine team that supports the Great Britain Para swimming team. One of the many scientific tools he uses with the swimmers is a ‘tow-rig’, a motorised winch system that was purpose-built by University technicians using funding from UK Sport.

He said: “The tow-rig is a custom-built testing device that we use to measure the drag that a swimmer creates in the water. It does this by towing the swimmer through the water at a specified speed.

“We can measure a swimmer’s drag in two modes, either passively – where they’re holding a fixed, streamlined position – or actively where they’re actually swimming.

“The unique design of the tow-rig enables us to set the towing speed very precisely and to measure the drag force to a very high level of accuracy.”

Prof Payton helps the athletes and coaches understand the measurable impact of small changes in technique or body position in the water. This is important in a sport where the best performers are not just the fittest or most powerful.

Recently he has been testing the drag of different manufacturers’ swimsuits on GB swimmers ahead of the re-scheduled Tokyo Paralympics and advising them which ones to wear.

Prof Payton said: “There can be up to a 5 to 10% difference between different swimsuits worn by the same swimmer, so it actually does have quite a significant impact on their swimming performance.

“Those drag differences may equate to a difference of anywhere between half a second to a second in a 100m race and, of course, half a second to a second could be the difference between winning the gold medal and not even making the final.

“The project involves much more than just tow-rig testing. It is just one of the many scientific methods and tools that we use in biomechanics, such as computational fluid dynamics, three-dimensional motion analysis of swimmers, and power measurement in the water. “We build up a profile of the swimmer and monitor how well they’re developing and improving throughout the season as they prepare for the major championships.”

Swimming had its own controversy when the sport’s governing body banned drag-reducing full body swimsuits in 2010, one year after 43 world records tumbled at the 2009 Rome World Championships.

Since then swimsuit companies have become more creative and one of their key focuses is compression — squeezing the swimmer’s body in strategic places to make it smoother and more hydrodynamic.

Prof Payton said: “Looking back over the 20 years that I’ve been involved with Para and Olympic swimming, there’s been a massive and obvious change in the technology available in terms of its complexity, in terms of what we can now measure that we couldn’t measure even five years ago, and in terms of the cost and the availability of the equipment, so it’s a lot more accessible.

“But I still think it’s important that you have a clear plan as to what you want to do with the technology: how you want to use it and why, what you need to measure and why. “It’s quite tempting just to measure something for the sake of it.

“You need a clear rationale. The key thing is to always ask the question: is the information we’re providing through this technology going to add value to what the coach already does?

“If you’re simply using technology and numbers to confirm what the coach already knows, then that’s not really adding value.

“But if you’re using the technology to offer new ideas, new recommendations or new evidence to move the performances on, that’s certainly useful.”

Technological developments are also seen in the safety paraphernalia that athletes wear in some games and there are two projects underway at Manchester Metropolitan that will change the garments and accessories employed in two popular sports.

PhD student Adil Imam is investigating padding in jerseys to help the governing body for rugby union update its relevant apparel regulation and testing regime to keep pace with developments.

Imam said: “We are working with World Rugby, in collaboration with the University of Sheffield, to review its regulations for body padding to ensure they remain fit for the modern game.

“We are combining laboratory testing of padded materials with computer models to better understand protective performance in different scenarios.”

Ever-advancing materials and manufacturing technologies are becoming available to engineers and designers, allowing them to explore and implement new and improved designs – such as materials that densify or stiffen on impact, which could influence both the level of protection provided to the wearer and the risk of injury to an opponent.

Imam said: “The current regulation places a limit on the level of protection offered by body padding to ensure that wearing it does not change the nature of the game.

“We are investigating new and emerging materials, such as non-Newtonian materials, auxetic materials and 3D printed structures, so we can make suggestions to World Rugby on how best to future-proof the regulations for body padding.

 “We are also looking at where padding should be placed on the body to reduce cuts and lacerations, and how best to regulate for this.”

 In the same laboratory, PhD candidate Gemma Leslie has contributed to the development of the first global safety standard for snowboard wristguards in collaboration with the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (BFU).

She said: “It’s been identified that up to 45 per cent of snowboard injuries are to the wrist because people often land on their wrists as they try to break their fall.

“But there was no international standard for snowboard wrist protectors, so manufacturers previously did not have to submit their products for testing, and we didn’t know if the various models and designs actually work.

“We started off looking at the standards for wrist protectors in roller sports, but there are differences – snow versus solid floor, and the fact that snowboarders would also be wearing gloves.

“Some designs are solid ‘shells’ and other are more like splints, and our initial testing found that some wrist protectors offer limited protection against hyper-extension of the wrist.”

Laboratory testing for the roller sport standard used a basic paddle-like substitute for the hand and so Leslie is developing a more sophisticated life-like analogue covered with silicon to mimic skin and soft tissue and the accompanying parameters for safety experiments.

Leslie said the BFU and testing houses are happy that the testing regime the University has helped formulate is so simple and straightforward, and the safety standards was published earlier this year.

The question of whether new technology genuinely helps athletes or is a gimmick is one Dr Greg Wood, Senior Lecturer in Motor Control, has been involved in.

He carried out a study of the efficacy of a virtual reality (VR) football training simulator by crunching anonymous simulator data from users who ranged from top footballers to volunteers who played only recreationally.

Dr Wood said: “I’m interested in how training in virtual environments can be used to train sports performers.

“In our recent study we showed that professional players outperformed novices in a virtual football environment.

“This provides some evidence that the virtual world replicates important aspects of the real world of football.

“Another benefit of VR is that we are able to design training environments that replicate sporting scenarios that are hard to reproduce in the real world.

“For example, we can put players in packed-out stadiums or other highly pressurised scenarios in order to prepare them for competition in the real world.”

Other uses of the VR systems are that they can provide the opportunity to continue to practice on mental aspects of the game when physical practice is not appropriate, such as during injury recuperation, or possibly, due to the recent COVID-19 lockdown.

Dr Wood said: “One of the problems when football players are injured is that they experience time out of the game and while they can keep physically strong, the mental sharpness can decrease over time.

“It’s been reported to take a couple of weeks for people to actually get that match fitness back after a period of injury, not just physically but in terms of on-field decision-making.

“But in virtual environments you can replicate such scenarios and train people and you can make sure that they maintain those skills by kicking a virtual ball that doesn’t involve the same kind of physical load on an injured leg.”

With so much development in equipment and technology, what are the trends to look out for on a track, court or field near you over the next few years?

Dr Allen said: “The three main areas are going to be a performance, customisation and sustainability — technologies will trickle down from elite sport and be applied at a mass market level, and techniques like 3D printing and modular design will aid that.

“There’s smart technologies to consider as well and in this respect, sport tends to mimic society.

“If people are interested in smart phones and smart watches, why not also have a smart tennis racket?

“It certainly will be interesting to keep an eye on.”