This summer semester, the Professorship for Sports Equipment and Sports Materials was again at the Zugspitze with 17 students for three days as part of the course “Methods Seminar Sports Technology”. We spent the night at the Schneefernerhaus research station at an altitude of around 2650m below the Zugspitz summit.
Various, limited-scope research questions on the topic of outdoor sports were worked out together in preparation for this excursion and made methodically accessible. Prototypes of sports equipment and measuring devices can be used or new products from the sporting goods market can be evaluated in scientifically oriented practical tests in a high alpine environment.
This semester, the students analyzed the effect of running poles during trail running using mobile spiroergometry and electromyography. In addition, the effectiveness of the Omius headband with cooling elements (which is particularly well known in the triathlon scene) was tested on an exercise bike and outdoors while running with a thermal imaging camera. Other topics included the analysis of the movement of the feet in mountain boots when walking uphill and downhill using optical sensors, as well as the comparison of two motion capture systems based on inertial sensors.