Description:

Dynamic is inspired by first hand experience with a major sporting injury. This solution aims to prevent sports injuries by educating correct game-like movements through the means of physical indication.

Being injured is a long and strenuous process that can take a toll on an individual's physical, mental, and social well being. As a result a player may decide to stop playing sport altogether and lose a once much loved pastime.

In New Zealand there are over 400,000 annual claims to our Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) which are associated with sports. With low level strain and sprain injuries from high impact and contact sports taking up the majority of these claims. These types of injuries are easily preventable through proper warm up and correct training methods.

The current “injury prevention” products consist of braces and other supports which are most useful post injury and in the return-to-play process. These products are typically used as a band-aid solution to get a player back onto the field sooner than they should be. Increasing their likelihood of reinjury and the severity of injury.

Further research found that training styles like neuromuscular training (quality of game-like movements over quantity) were an effective method to help prevent injuries within sports. Throughout user interviews it became evident that users are unaware of this training style and relied heavily on methods such as; warming up, stretching, and strapping. All of these are effective when done properly but compared to neuromuscular training they require a lot more effort and time to do so. Properly training correct game-like movements can help a player make these movements second nature and therefore perform correctly in-game.

Throughout the design process there were various experiments on how to physically indicate movement across a joint. Starting with an idea of physical displacement and testing a two layer system that showcased fabric/colour exposure when stretched. To the end result of an auxetic structure to expose the contrasting colour layer underneath. Utilising this structure’s unique shape transformation characteristic helps emphasise the extent of movement across specific areas of a joint.

The final design’s form is based on patterns from a general knee strapping, with interchangeable indicator bands derived from the different support cross-sections in the strapping layout. Each indicator band maps different movement areas; over the knee maps the overall extension, above knee cross-section maps lower leg displacement, and under knee cross-section maps upper leg displacement.

This design focuses on the knee joint, but with greater development Dynamic aims to cater for more complex multi-directional joints like the shoulder, hip, and ankle. This will help prevent more injuries and keep more people playing sport injury free.