Evaluation of driving posture for a competition wheelchair based on the relationship between physical load and manipulation force

Engineering of Sport 15 - Proceedings from the 15th International Conference on the Engineering of Sport (ISEA 2024)

Competition wheelchairs are required to have various functions, such as quick turning, sudden starting and braking, and high speed driving. One of the previous studies on injuries in wheelchair athletes showed that the relationship between muscle weakness and shoulder pain was due to atrophy of the muscles around the scapula. If it would be possible to evaluate wheelchairs in view of the physical load, a suitable wheelchair may be individually selected for the athlete, and may lead to the reduction of injury risk. A method using the functional evaluation of effective muscle strength has been proposed as an example of evaluation for sports equipment and human exercise focusing on muscle characteristics. It was claimed that the method can evaluate output force of a limb and the mechanical properties of the muscles based on the functional role of the muscles. In this study, the method was applied to the wheelchair operation to calculate an effective muscle manipulative force (EMMF) using the muscle force estimated from the inverse dynamics analysis. This study also investigated the relationship between the EMMF and the physical force as an attempt to evaluate the driving posture which depends on the design parameters of the wheelchair.