Venuse
Augmented Health Tech for Female Athletes. Utalizes research on the effect on the menstrual cycle on muscle power output and injury risk to help athletes plan their training.
Design Engineer & Kinesiologist
Kinesiology, Sports Biology, Physiology, Sports Product Design, UI
Year: 2019, 5 weeks
Venuse is a research driven, training and injury prevention system for female athletes.
Overlapping menstrual cycle and athletic training in a one month clock which visualizes the interaction between the two.
Research
Did you know hormones affect injury risk in female athletes?
Menstrual Cycle & Injury Risk
For one week a month, halfway through the week of menstruation, rising levels of oestrogen cause ligament flexibility to rise, destabilizing joints, and directly causing a higher risk of injury. This mechanism most often is expressed in the form of knee injuries.
“Any change to ligament flexibility outside the normal range will put the athlete at risk”
- Dr. Lance Rane, Imperial Bioengineering
Acute damage to the ACL is the most common injury.
The ACL is a ligament in the knee that prevents the lower leg from moving forward & rotating internally independent from the upper leg. Women have a 3-6 times higher injury risk than men.
Athletic Training Cycles
Athletic training receives the best outcomes and most often follows a cyclical pattern of 3 weeks of high intensity and 1 week of low intensity. This pattern allows for the body and muscles to adapt and grow.
When this pattern is translated to a 3D form, a model represents one month of training intensity can be seen as changes in elevation
Making and Prototyping
How can the menstrual cycle and athletic training cycle be aligned to best support the athlete?
How can this information be clearly communicated and have a feedback loop to ensure it is accurate?
10 Participants; recreational to professional athletes
5 Expert Interviews; Imperial College Department of Bioengineering and Surgery
Sensor Tech Explorations
A calendar is only as good as its accuracy. This sensor explores how monitor increased flexibility in the ACL. This data can be used to track patterns and provide feedback to retain accuracy. Areas of exploration included: gyroscopes, conductive fabric, carbon nano-tube coated rubber bands.
Conductive fabric has the best sensitivity capabilities for this application. Sewn into a knee sleeve, it enables abnormal stretching to be measured.
Time Keeping Explorations
The goal was to create an analogue time keeping option. This “clock” could visually illustrate the alignment off the two cycles. It would receive feedback from the sensors to ensure accuracy.
Prototypes were made using a combination of mechatronics, laser cutting and custom woodworking.
Final Concept
The final concept is system using input from the user to produce a calendar that aligns health data and athletic training goals. It receives feedback from a sensor knee sleeve to retain accuracy. This information is communicated to the user through an app and an analog system which visualized the interaction between both the menstrual and training cycles.
Special Thanks to: Martin Ramette; Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London. Jaime Aguilera; Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London. Dr. Lance Rane; Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London.
