idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
idw - Informationsdienst
Wissenschaft
For the first time in Germany, a digitally supported motion analysis of a Paralympic national team is being conducted under the leadership of the University of Bayreuth: Prof. Dr. Franz Konstantin Fuss, Chairholder of Biomechanics at the University of Bayreuth, together with his former Master’s student Lena Bäumker – now a research associate – are equipping the wheelchairs of the men’s and women’s national basketball teams with sensors that provide insights into performance and training optimisation. The project is funded by the Federal Institute of Sport Science with over €130,000.
Speed, acceleration, total distance, rotational speed and activity – what coaches previously only observed visually is now being measured using sensors and recorded with reliable data. “The sheer volume of data and its analysis is something unprecedented in German Paralympic sport,” says Prof. Fuss. The data collected can be used to measure performance in training and competition, identify improvements in individual players, or assist in squad selection. “These new insights and the discovery of new performance parameters could lead to the optimisation or complete overhaul of training processes,” Fuss explains.
The research involves all members of the national wheelchair basketball teams as well as the National Paralympic Committee Germany (DBS). The project will start in January 2026 and run for two years. The wheelchairs of the German national wheelchair basketball team will be equipped with a sensor on each manually driven rear wheel. The sensors not only capture continuous velocity data but also allow for the evaluation of defined performance parameters throughout the entire training and match period. In addition, sensor monitoring enables the testing of different training regimes and an evaluation of which training approach is most effective for the squad or individual players.
Preliminary test runs for data collection have already been conducted in cooperation with the Bayreuth Wheelchair Basketball Association. Subsequently, Fuss and Bäumker also participated in the women’s national team training camp in Lobbach in 2024, where they also equipped the wheelchairs with sensors. The data collected – part of Bäumker’s Master’s thesis – provided clear evidence of the success of sensor-based training and was therefore crucial for the approval of the funding application. Fuss brings his experience with sensor-based game and training data from other sports to the new project: during his tenure as Professor of Sports Engineering at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, he supervised PhD projects from 2009 to 2012 that measured and analysed sensor-based performance data of the Australian wheelchair rugby team. “These projects played a key role in Australia winning its first gold medal in wheelchair rugby at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London,” says Fuss.
This project is funded by the Federal Institute of Sport Science based on a resolution of the German Bundestag.
Prof. Dr. Franz Konstantin Fuss
Biomechanics
University of Bayreuth
Phone: +49 (0)921 / 785 16 101
E-mail: franzkonstantin.fuss@uni-bayreuth.de
Criteria of this press release:
Journalists, Scientists and scholars, all interested persons
Sport science
transregional, national
Research projects
English
You can combine search terms with and, or and/or not, e.g. Philo not logy.
You can use brackets to separate combinations from each other, e.g. (Philo not logy) or (Psycho and logy).
Coherent groups of words will be located as complete phrases if you put them into quotation marks, e.g. “Federal Republic of Germany”.
You can also use the advanced search without entering search terms. It will then follow the criteria you have selected (e.g. country or subject area).
If you have not selected any criteria in a given category, the entire category will be searched (e.g. all subject areas or all countries).
