Strength and Conditioning Training Robots: AI Sensing and Feedback Approach

Strength and conditioning (S&C) training has become a more prevalent part of athletes’ workout regime to improve their performance in various sports event. Nowadays, elite athlete strength and conditioning training has heavily relied on structured training programs/plans using free weights such as Olympic lifting bars that are mostly bound to isotonic muscle contractions. Although athletes follow structured training programs/plans, there are day-to-day fluctuations in physical status as a human. This may hinder the appropriateness of the planned training intensities and modalities. The objective of this proposed project is to develop an intelligent robot enabled exercise system to provide more training methods (isokinetic, supramaximal eccentric, isometric, etc.) for enhancing elite athlete performance. The system is integrated with a robotic exercise machine, an intelligent sensing system and a digital twin system. The ultimate objective of the robot is to contribute towards further enhancement of elite athletes’ strength and power development beyond what they are generally able to realize through current elite athlete strength training modalities.