How Does The Use Of Technology Impact Sports Performance?

There are many reasons that people choose to play sports. Not only is good for your health, but it promotes teamwork and sportsmanship. These are both transferable skills which can be taken into different aspects of life, such as in the workplace and when studying. The discipline learnt when playing a sport is also a great life-skill to have. Sports is also a great way to socialise and make friends, that will most than likely have similar interests. This can be very helpful when trying to make friends, such as when starting university, as you will be able to meet people that already have a common interest to you. Furthermore, it can help individuals to learn to focus and to manage their time efficiently. This again is another transferable skill that is very valuable in places such as the workplace and when completing studies. (7 Good Reasons Teenagers Should Play Sports, 2020)

Advances in technology have had a profound impact on sports. There are four main areas I shall explore which have altered due to these technological advances. These include an improvement in analysis that therefore improves feedback given to athletes, an increase accuracy to measurements that also allows for the analysis of new data to be collected, allowing for replays and video-assistance in real-time that can make game-changing decisions, and lastly the improvement of sports equipment, both the designs and materials used. These are key areas because it highlights ways in which both the training regiments and the performance of sports has been influenced and affected by technology. (Sport Industry: The impact of technology on sport, 2020)

The use of Virtual Reality (VR) has allowed for athletes to be able to train using virtual scenarios and receive feedback almost instantaneously. This allows for an immersive experience which before the use of VR could not happen. By using VR, scenarios can also be repeated with a perfect accuracy, something that cannot be done in real life due to external factors. This allows for athletes to practice in these virtual scenarios without the need of a large sporting physical facility. Video playback can also be used to analyse athletes, but VR has many advantages over video playback. These include allowing for virtual environments that provide an immersive and more realistic experience. Also, VR can track an athlete’s head movement which allows for changing the viewpoint in the virtual environment which allows the athlete to feel as if they are really in that environment. Lastly, VR displays are stereoscopic, meaning that they provide a sense of depth, something that video feedback, which is 2D, lacks. An example in which this has been used is in rugby. Models are simulated running at the athlete, and they athlete needs to determine the direction that the animation is ‘running’, judging by their body movement and positioning. This can then be repeated, and the athlete’s prediction accuracy recorded. Although this article is from 2009, many of the ideas are still used, including with a lot of the same hardware, including VR headsets. The main changes have been in the software and the increase in how realistic the immersive experience is. (Using Virtual Reality to Analyze Sports Performance, 2020)

Further to the use of VR, there has recently been a lot of advancements in the use of wearables for the collection of data related to sports in order to help analyse athlete’s performance. This data can then be used as part of the coaching regiment to help improve athletes. The two main variables measured include kinetic (the motion in sports) and kinematics (the mechanics of the motion). There are many devices used to quantify motion in sports, including inertial measurement units, flex sensors and magnetic field and angular rate sensors. This paper concludes that there is an increased understanding, however it is not at a stage where it is ready for general use. There is potential that in the future, wearable technology may be used to monitor long-term in order for injury prevention which is a big issue at the moment, especially in higher levels of sports. Furthermore, if athletes were to be provided real-time data, this could influence the techniques used which could change the way some sports are played. Further to this, there has been advancements in time-tracking equipment. This has specially made a big difference in events such as short sprints, where even milliseconds can make a difference. (Using Virtual Reality to Analyze Sports Performance,, 2020)

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Athletes are not the only people in sport who have been influenced by the advancements in technology. Officiating can be as challenging as doing the sport itself and has challenges such as not being able to be in the right place at the right time, or due to the speed some sports are now played. There is a large importance in reducing mistakes made by officials, and technology such as hawk-eye (used in tennis) and Goal-Line-Technology are commonly used to confirm or correct what could be game-changing decisions. Although there are clearly many positives of this, such as that decisions will always be correct, there are some negatives that come with it. Its main problem is the cost, for example, goal-line-technology used by FIFA costs £250,000 per ground in total. On top of this very high installation cost, it costs to use each match. (Williamson, 2020). Another technique being used in that has impacted technology is the use of video play-back during the match in order to check or adjust decisions made by officials. This currently known as Video-Assisted Refereeing (VAR) in football, or television match officials (TMO) in rugby. It is used by officials being able to stop and review what has happened during a match live in order to adjust decisions if needed. The main issue that a lot of both athletes and spectators have with such video assistance is that it disrupts the flow of the game. The high cost of such technologies means that they can only be used for professional level competition. This therefore means that despite the sport being played competitively at all levels, only the top gets the assurances that this technology provides. Many athletes believe that competitive sport should be the same at all levels that it is played. (The Use of Video Technologies in Refereeing Football and Other Sports)

As well as technological advances, there have also been many physical advances aided by technology. There has been both an improvement in the equipment used, for example, the materials have changed in pole vaulting poles, which have allowed for better jumps to be achieved. This can be shown by the figures of the Men’s Olympic pole vault records. In 1896, the gold medallist achieved 3.30m. This record was achieved with a fully wooden pole. AS different materials were used in sports, the solid wood poles were replaced with bamboo, as it is a much lighter material that can also flex well which helped pole-vaulters. By 1958, the record had increased to 4.80m. At this point, fibreglass poles were starting to be used, and this is sometimes considered as the start of a new era for pole-vaulting. The requirements that were needed were for the poles to be strong but yet lightweight, properties which are shared by other sports, such as tennis, for lightweight tennis rackets, hockey for light-weight yet strong and durable hockey sticks and cycling frames, to support the riders weight while being as light as possible. (Materials and technology in sport, 2020). Furthermore, the items physically worn by athletes have changed due to technology. These include running shoes for sprinters and swimming costumes for swimmers.

As with anything involving technology, there are some ethical issues to be discussed. With technology rapidly increasing, the amount of data being collected regarding sport is also increasing rapidly. This raises security and ethical complications. There are no regulations that address the use of biometric technologies in sports. Professional athletes have some sort of protection due to being considered as employees, but when it comes to student-athletes, there are no regulations in place. There are five main areas of concern, and these are the validity and interpretation of the data, increased surveillance and threats to privacy, risk to confidentiality and data security, conflicts of interests and coercion. (Tracking U.S. Professional Athletes: The Ethics of Biometric Technologies, 2020). Until safeguards are put in place for athletes, the parties gathering the data should be careful, always ensuring athletes have given explicit permission tor such data to be used.

In summary, I found an infographic which shows the many aspects that have changed in sports and sports performance due to technology. The eight ways summarised at the end of the infographic include the following; time-tracking systems which has improved, allowing better accuracy for records where small increments of time matter, such as sprinting and swimming. Clothing and equipment that has allowed athletes to achieve better results due to being able to make equipment that better suits each individual sport. Goal-Line Technology has allowed to accurately determine goals at football games. Video technology has been able to be used for video-assisted refereeing as well as using videos to help coach athletes. GPS tracking data has allowed for measurements to be taken that allow for analysis and coaching, with the use of devices such as wearables. Virtual imaging to help with coaching and to allow for better injury-prevention to take place. Accuracy decision such as Hawk-Eye have ensured that athletes are sure that sports are being played to the rules, as they rule out human error. Lastly, the coverage of sporting events has drastically increased, meaning sports is more available to watch around the word with internet on any device. (The Evolution of Tech in Sport | Hire Intelligence UK, 2020)

To conclude, the use of technology has impacted sports and sports performance both positively and negatively. The rate at which records have been broken over time has plateaued, and new world records are going to become more and more rare. This is due to athletes only being able to achieve their full potential, and this has meant that the full potential achieved by athletes has mostly been reached. Technology is now being a large contributor as to why records are still being broken. This is good for the sports industry as it keeps a captive audience and allows for the sport to remain popular. On the other hand, technology in sport must be closely watched as the advancements in technology are starting to mean that if not regulated, drastic changes to different sports could happen. This can be seen recently when full-body swimming costumes were banned in competitive swimming as it was considered as too much of an advantage. Researchers and athletes will do as much as possible in order to find technology and techniques to improve results achieved in sports, how-ever marginal they may be. (Technology in Sport - Is it Cheating?, 2012)