Development of the instrumentation of a 4-man bobsled

Franziska Onasch; Andrew Sawatsky; Andrzej Stano; Walter Herzog

doi:10.1016/j.jbiomech.2023.111578

Development of the instrumentation of a 4-man bobsled

J Biomech. 2023 May:152:111578. doi: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2023.111578. Epub 2023 Apr 7.

Authors

Franziska Onasch¹, Andrew Sawatsky², Andrzej Stano², Walter Herzog²

Affiliations

¹ Human Performance Laboratory, Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Calgary, Canada. Electronic address: franziska.onasch@ucalgary.ca.
² Human Performance Laboratory, Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Calgary, Canada.

PMID: 37068416
DOI: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2023.111578

Abstract

A bobsled race can be won or lost at the start, and the contribution of the athletes during the start phase is crucial. Nevertheless, the details of that contribution are not well understood, and we believe that, to improve team performance, it is necessary to determine the contributions of the individual athletes to the bobsled's speed throughout the start phase. The goal of this project was to develop the instrumentation for a 4-man bobsled that allows for measuring the propulsive forces of each athlete during the bobsled push start. We describe the final set-up and discuss potential applications. The instrumented bobsled can be used to provide novel and important information about individual athlete and team performance during the start phase of bobsledding.

Keywords: 4-man; Bobsled; Force Measurement; High Performance; Push Start.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Athletes*
Athletic Performance*
Humans