MIXED REALITY IN SPORTS TRAINING: A CYBER-PHYSICAL APPROACH TO ENHANCING ROWING TECHNIQUE AND PERFORMANCE
Rowing is a high-intensity cooperative sport in which consistent training withteammates plays a vital role in learning and improving the inherent techniques and more importantly, coordination among the teammates. However, on-water training is highly dependent on the weather conditions, which drastically affects training schedules and makes individual training difficult, especially in the absence of other teammates and coaches. Current substitutes to on-water training include rowing ergometers which provide preliminary feedback to their users about the forces generated by these users but do not provide any visual feedback, which plays a pivotal role in team coordination and skill adaptation in rowing. This paper presents a novel integration of virtual reality (VR) with ergometer-based training to provide a more “complete” and immersive experience to the user, bridging the gap between on-water and indoor training. Additionally, new feedback cues are designed, leveraging this integration, to help improve the overall technique of the user. The effectiveness of this simulator, to act as an immersive stand-alone VR training module, is demonstrated using human-interaction studies involving trained and novice rowers.