New app aims to reduce athlete injuries, boost performance

In 2011, South Korean soccer forward Shin Young-rok, who played for Jeju United in the K-League, fell unconscious after suffering a heart attack during a match.

The ill-fated striker, previously considered a rising star in the country’s professional soccer league, had to announce his retirement at the early age of 24 to receive long-term medical treatment.

While small to big injuries are inevitable in sports, the development of technologies can now help young, competent athletes like Shin stop worrying about having to retire from a thriving career due to injuries. 

“Up to 70 percent of the injuries occur because of overuse. It happens because the athlete places too much stress on his or her body, be it on the muscles, joints or cardiovascular system,” Sports physician Dr. Roger Tian, the medical director of the Singapore Sports Medicine Center, said during a media event hosted by German software firm SAP in Singapore last month. 

The German information technology solutions firm is launching a new application for use by sports teams worldwide to improve the fan experience and help prevent their players from getting injured.

The Injury Risk Monitor collects data such as players’ heart rate, respiratory rate and distance traveled, through sensors seamlessly attached to wearable and nonwearable devices.

Athletes can wear them during matches and training to calculate their fitness level by taking past injury history and diet into consideration. Users can see the data in visual information, simplified for coaches and medical professionals to instantly analyze, collectively mitigating the risks.

During the event, Singapore soccer team Home United’s goalkeeper Zulfairuuz Rudy did a live IRM demonstration, showing simple soccer drills while wearing a sensory vest under his jersey.

Data including the physiological state and performance history of Rudy were shown on a screen in real time, which can be used to customize players’ training regimes to boost performance as well. 

SAP believes the software can also help national teams select outstanding players for global sports events like the Olympics and World Cup, as in the 2011 hit film “Moneyball.”

In the movie based on a true story, Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, a Major League Baseball general manager who uses analytics to create a winning team for the 2002 season. This was a simple example of how analytics plays a role in the world of sports on and off the field.

Puneet Suppal, Solution Strategy and Adoption executive at SAP, said there’s been a high level of interest from cricket, baseball and soccer associations.

“We’re still debating over a time frame for the release (of the application) in the market.

“The framework of the IRM will be customized for different users from various sports,” he explained. “But for sports like football (soccer) and cricket, we need to build some unique things around it. So we don’t have a fixed date at the moment to release this.”


By Suk Gee-hyun (monicasuk@heraldcorp.com)