Training Tech Lets Competitive Swimmers Hear Water Pressure

Swimming has been an Olympic sport for 120 years, and nowadays it's the competitors with the best technique that manage to beat the rest of the field and walk away with the medals. Now, researchers at Bielefeld University in Germany have developed technology that could provide athletes with an edge in training, converting pressure data into live audio, allowing the swimmer to perfect their technique in real time.

The idea of the new system is to enhance the athlete's perception of the water that surrounds them. Swimmers can already see the way that their hands and body move through the water, and they can feel the way it glides over them. Bielefeld's "Swimming Sonification" system takes things to the next level, recording flow pressure and converting it into audio feedback.

It consists of a pair of specialized gloves, which include a number of thin tubes placed between the fingers. Water passes through the tubes as the swimmer moves through the water, measuring water flow pressure. That data is then fed to specially-designed software that translates the information into sound, which the athlete then hears in real-time through headphones.

Source: newatlas.comAdded: 10 August 2016