Investigation of the Sensorimotor Training

Analyzing Exercisers with One-dimensional and Multidimensional Instability

Angelina Thiers

, Annett l’Orteye

, Katja Orlowski

and Thomas Schrader

Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences, Department of Informatics and Media, Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany

adtisches Klinikum Brandenburg GmbH, Akademisches Lehrkrankenhaus der Charit

Abteilung Medizinische Schule, Brandenburg, Germany

Keywords:

Sensorimotor Training, EMG Data, Motion Data.

Abstract:

The importance and the attractivity of the sensorimotor training is still growing. Up to now the impact of

the training on the body is not yet fully investigated. Hence, nowadays the planning of the therapy is mainly

based on the experiences of the physiotherapist and on the conditions of the practice. For the development

of the therapy the physiotherapist is supported by manufacturer’s information about the exercisers as well as

by general assumptions regarding the sensorimotor training. For the validation of this information two setups

were investigated. In the ﬁrst part, the behavior of two students was studied on three exercisers. Here the EMG

data and the motion data were analyzed. In the second part, the behavior of the left and the right body side

was analyzed for 16 subjects. The study revealed that the major work for the maintenance of the equilibrium is

done by the distal musculature. Furthermore, it was shown that there is a different behavior of the musculature

at both body sides. Additionally, it has been proven that each test person had an individual behavior on the

exercisers. Consequently, it would be hard to make general assumptions regarding the impact of the training

on the body.

1 INTRODUCTION

The sensorimotor training offers a great variety of ap-

plication ﬁelds as well as a lot of different exercis-

ers. Hence, it is going to be more and more attractive.

Nevertheless, the training itself is not completely in-

vestigated until now (R

uhl and Laubach, 2012).

In the physiotherapists practice the training is es-

pecially used for prevention, therapy, rehabilitation as

well as for the improvement of the athletic perfor-

mance (H

afelinger and Schuba, 2010).

Firstly Dr. Vladimir Janda noticed that regard-

ing the control of human movement there is a direct

correlation of the sensory and the motor system. He

pointed out that both systems react as one and that

changes in one system also lead to reactions in the

other system. He also introduced the term “sensori-

motor system”. His studies showed that the proprio-

ception, also known as depth sensitivity, is the most

signiﬁcant aspect for the coordination of movement.

As part of his investigations he developed the senso-

rimotor training (Page, 2005; Lukas et al., 2011).

Besides that the motor unit activity is also a key-

word of the sensorimotor training. Motor unit activity

comprises the terms of reﬂexes, controlled voluntary

movements as well as rhythmic and cyclical motion

patterns. The overall process of the coordination of

the movement is a complex process. Consequently,

the success of the training depends mostly on the cor-

rect and professional execution of the training (Lukas

et al., 2011).

The growing popularity of the sensorimotor train-

ing causes a huge range of different exercisers for sup-

porting. The great amount of different exercisers and

the fact that the sensorimotor training, especially the

therapy planning is not fully investigated, make the

execution of an effective training quite difﬁcult.

Nowadays the application of the exercisers as

well as the planning of the whole therapy is mainly

based on the experiences of the physiotherapist and

of the given possibilities in their practice (R

uhl and

Laubach, 2012). The information about the exercis-

ers published by the manufacturers or in the literature

may have an inﬂuence on the planning of the training.

For example, the Balance Board should strengthen

the musculature of the buttocks, the legs, the back

and the abdomen (Sport-Thieme, 2012). The mainte-

nance of the equilibrium on the Balance Board should

Thiers A., l’Orteye A., Orlowski K. and Schrader T..

Investigation of the Sensorimotor Training - Analyzing Exercisers with One-dimensional and Multidimensional Instability.

DOI: 10.5220/0004637700710078

In Proceedings of the International Congress on Sports Science Research and Technology Support (icSPORTS-2013), pages 71-78

ISBN: 978-989-8565-79-2

 2013 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

have different effects. The ﬁrst effect is the improve-

ment of the inter- and intramuscular coordination of

the muscles of the feet and the legs. The second ef-

fect, staying with both feed on the Balance Board,

is the enhancement of the stabilization in the region

of the lumbar spine, the pelvis and the hip. The last

effect is the optimization of the inter- and intramus-

cular coordination of muscles of the lumbar spine,

the thoracic spine and the cervical spine (Bertram

and Laube, 2008). Another example says that the

beginners should use an exerciser like the Rocker

Board. Rocker Boards have a one-dimensional insta-

bility. The principle behind: the higher the instability

the more the musculature has to stabilize (Grifka and

Dullien, 2008).

In summary there are the following problems re-

garding the planing of the sensorimotor training:

1. Great variety of exerciser

2. Assumption of the expected trainings effects of

the exercisers are based on:

(a) the manufactures informations

(b) the literature

3. It is difﬁcult to verify the expected trainings ef-

fects

For the analyzes of the sensorimotor training, es-

pecially regarding the ﬁrst two items, an investiga-

tion of the effects of three different exercisers was

made. Thereby two exercisers with a one-dimensional

and one exerciser with an multidimensional instabil-

ity were compared.

2 MATERIAL & METHODS

2.1 Measurements

The Shimmer

measuring instruments are small

wireless sensors. The Bluetooth technology enables

to stream the data online and in real-time. The used

sensors were a combination of the baseboard and dif-

ferent daughterboards. The used daughterboards were

the electromyogram (EMG) as well as the gyroscope

sensor (Shimmer Research, 2011).

The EMG module allows the one channel mea-

surement of the electrical activity of a muscle. Provid-

ing pre-ampliﬁcation of EMG signal the non-invasive

method represents the whole activity of a muscle

(Shimmer Research Support, 2012).

The gyroscope daughterboard consists of a single

and a dual axis angular rate gyroscope and is able to

measure three angular velocity (Kuris, 2010).

2.2 Exercisers

2.2.1 Balance Board

The Balance Board is an exerciser with a multidi-

mensional instability, ﬁgure 1, which offers different

ﬁelds of application. The height of the exerciser is

9 cm. The Balance Board supports the strengthening

of the musculature of the buttocks, the legs, the back

as well as the abdomen (Sport-Thieme, 2012).

Figure 1: Balance Board.

2.2.2 Rocker Board

The Rocker Board is characterized by its one-

dimensional instability with a height of 7.5 cm, ﬁg-

ure 2. The exerciser offers either a forward-backward

or a left-right instability. The Rocker Board is made

to train the coordination, the stamina, the strength as

well as the motor skills (Bad-Company, 2013).

The left-right deﬂection requires movement pat-

terns performed by the extension and the ﬂexion of

the knee joints. In contrast, the forward-backward de-

ﬂection aims for the reaction of the ankle joint.

Figure 2: Rocker Board.

2.3 Experimental Setups

During the investigation two different setups were an-

alyzed. The main part of the analyzed data is orig-

inated in the ﬁrst setup. The second setup derived

from a previous study (Thiers et al., 2013b) and was

added for statistical analyzes. The ﬁrst setup is meant

to prove the assumption that the training on the exer-

ciser has got some effects on the whole body. The aim

icSPORTS2013-InternationalCongressonSportsScienceResearchandTechnologySupport

of the second setup was the investigation of the par-

ticipation of both body sides during the sensorimotor

training (Thiers et al., 2013a).

Supporting the objective to develop a user-

oriented experimental setup the design of the study

was made in cooperation with experienced physio-

therapists of a medical school. The requirement to

develop a test procedure which can also be executed

with patients causes the drop out of the maximum vol-

untary contraction measurement. Instead of the MVC

normalization a reference measurement in front of the

exerciser took place.

2.3.1 Setup 1

The ﬁrst setup comprised of two young (age under

30 years) and healthy students. Both subjects were

not familiar with the exercisers. An equal distribution

of the sexes was given.

For the investigation two different types of

Shimmer

measurement units were used. A pair

of gyroscope sensors were centrally placed on the

different exercisers. For the veriﬁcation of the as-

sumption that the training on the exercisers has ef-

fects to the whole body the sensors were placed at

ﬁve different muscles along the body. The following

ﬁve muscles were recorded: the M. tibialis anterior,

the M. vastus lateralis, the M. gluteus maximus, the

M. erector spinae (longissimus) and the M. trapezius.

All test points have been measured on the right and

on the left body side. Ag/AgCl surface electrodes

were applied at the skin. The skin preparation as

well as the placement of the electrodes considered the

recommendations of the SENIAM project (SENIAM

project, 2012).

The test persons had to perform the complete test

sequence for each of the three exercisers. The sub-

jects stand on both legs for the whole time. One test

sequence comprised of a reference measurement in

front of the exerciser with a duration of 15 s as well as

of a measurement on the equipment. This part of the

procedure was divided into four consecutive phases

of changing difﬁculty, table 1. All phases were char-

acterized by symmetrical requirements to both body

sides. All recordings have been done without shoes.

The instructions and the supervision of the correct ex-

ecution were made by an experienced physiotherapist.

Table 1: Setup 1 - Test procedure.

Phase Task Duration

1 Eyes open 30 s

2 Eyes closed 30 s

3 Throwing a medicine ball 60 s

4 Eyes open 30 s

2.3.2 Setup 2

The second setup involved 16 healthy subjects of the

medical school and the university. Two test persons

of the original study were not included. The selection

criterion, the subjects have to be a right-hander was

not full ﬁlled. The test persons ranged from 20 years

to 53 years in age. One half of the test persons was

familiar with the used exercisers.

For the current investigation only the data of the

Balance Board is of interest. Again, different sensors

were used. Nevertheless, only the EMG data of the

left and right M. tibialis anterior were important for

the current analyzes. The skin preparation and the

placement of the electrodes followed the recommen-

dations of the SENIAM project (SENIAM project,

2012).

The exercises were characterized by standing the

whole time on both legs and symmetrical require-

ments to the body sides. In this setup one test se-

quence consists of a reference recording in front of

the exerciser and the measurement with ﬁve differ-

ent phases on the Balance Board. Four of the phases

were identical to the phases of the ﬁrst setup. Con-

sequently, only these four phases were considered in

the analyzes of the behavior of the left and right body

side. Again, all test persons have not worn shoes.

2.4 Data Analyzes

Firstly the EMG data was notch ﬁltered with a block-

ing frequency of 50 Hz. Secondly a band-pass ﬁlter

was applied to the data (Merletti and Parker, 2004).

The next step comprised the normalizations of the

EMG data. The calculation of the average muscu-

lar activity when staying in front of the exerciser was

used as normalization value. Subsequently, the ab-

solute values of the measurement on the exercisers

were transformed into relative values by using the

normalization value. Consequently, the values were

presented as percentage of the stance.

The signal processing also implies the full-wave

rectiﬁcation of the EMG data (Merletti and Parker,

2004). The evaluation of the data in the time domain

includes the calculation of different statistical param-

eters. The maximum and mean values were computed

for the whole signal over a time window of 512 ms

(Gu et al., 2010). These values were used for further

calculations. On the one hand the course of the maxi-

mum values over time was documented. On the other

hand the mean value of the maximum voltage values

for each phase as well as for the complete procedure

was calculated. Next to the mean and the maximum

of the EMG the accumulated EMG activity (iEMG)

InvestigationoftheSensorimotorTraining-AnalyzingExerciserswithOne-dimensionalandMultidimensionalInstability

was evaluated. Therefore, the EMG was integrated

over time. Consequently, the total accumulated activ-

ity was computed by the calculation of the area un-

der the EMG for a chosen time period (Robertson and

Caldwell, 2004; Medved, 2000). This calculation was

performed for each phase as well as for the complete

test procedure. Furthermore, the course of the iEMG

was documented by the summation of the iEMG over

the time.

The transformation of the EMG signal from time

into frequency domain was achieved by using the Fast

Fourier Transformation over signal segments of 512

ms (Kaplanis et al., 2009; P. Grimshaw and Fowler,

2006). This transformation allows the computation of

parameters in the frequency domain. The total power

is described as the accumulation of the power density

spectrum (SPD) of the whole frequencies (f), equation

1 (Kaplanis et al., 2009).

totalPower

∞

( f )d f (1)

The parameter is used as an indicator for muscle fa-

tigue. An increase of the total power indicates that the

muscle is fatigued.

In addition to the EMG data the gyroscope data

was also analyzed. The motion data was low-pass ﬁl-

tered. Afterwards the direction of motion as well as

the current deﬂection was computed.

3 RESULTS

The accumulated EMG activity was calculated for

each muscle and for each exerciser. For the com-

parison of the participation of the individual muscles

the one with the highest activity value was declared

as 100 %. All other activity values of the remaining

muscles were set in relation to the 100 %.

Figure 3 shows the course of the accumulated

EMG activity of the M. tibialis anterior and the M.

vastus lateralis for both body sides of test person two

on the left-right Rocker Board. In this case the 100 %

were achieved by the right M. vastus lateralis. This

observation goes along with the expected relationship

of the participation of the individual muscles. The

left-right Rocker Board especially requires the ﬂexion

and the extension of the knee which is among other

things realized by the M. vastus lateralis.

Another outcome of ﬁgure 3 is that both sides of

the M. tibiales anterior perform less work than the

right M. vastus lateralis. It is also shown that the

left muscles only carry out half of the activity com-

pared to the right side. Additionally, it can be seen

that with the beginning of the second phase the val-

ues of the EMG activity as well as the difference in

the amount of the activity between the two muscles

increases. Both muscles have in common that the dif-

ference in the amount of the activity level raises over

time.

This behavior was analyzed in the context of the

direction of motion. However the distribution of the

direction does not depend on the overall time the

board moved to right is similar to the overall dura-

tion of the left movements. Hence, the dominance of

the right musculature depends not on the supremacy

of one direction of motion.

Figure 3: Left-right Rocker Board - Accumulated Activity

(TP 02).

Figure 4 visualizes the average maximum values

for each phase for each muscle when test person two

used the Rocker Board (left-right). The ﬁrst ﬁnding

is, that during the initial phase nearly for all muscles

the lowest values were documented. Although, the

ﬁrst and the last phase require an identical task, the

measured values of the last phase were higher. This

highlights that there is a slow relaxation of the muscle

activity.

The second ﬁnding is, that the highest values were

always reached by the distal musculature. Especially,

for the left and right M. gluteus maximus and the left

and right M. trapezius descendens relatively low volt-

age values were documented.

The highest values for nearly all muscles can be

seen during the third phase “Medicine ball”. The

catching and throwing of the ball causes an additional,

external stimulus which inﬂuences the maintenance

of the balance. Furthermore, the execution of this

motion sequence requires the left and right M. erec-

tor spinae. Consequently, for a higher participation of

the back muscles an external stimulus is needed. This

also supports the assumption that the major part of the

work for the maintenance of the equilibrium is done

by the distal musculature and that for a participation

of the proximal musculature an external stimulus is

required.

Another outcome of ﬁgure 4 is that in most cases

the higher voltage values were reached by the right

body side. In particular, the difference between the

icSPORTS2013-InternationalCongressonSportsScienceResearchandTechnologySupport

documented values of the left and right body side of

the leg muscles supports the assumption that there

is a dominance of the strain in the right body side

although a symmetrical requirement to both sides is

given, again.

Figure 4: Forward-backward Rocker Board - Average Max-

imum Values (TP 02).

Figure 5 shows the course of the average maxi-

mum values as well as the course of the total power

of the left and right M. gluteus maximus of test person

one during the usage of the Balance Board.

Figure 5: Balance Board - Average Maximum Values and

Total Power (TP 01).

On the one hand the illustration points out that

the right body side is generating higher voltage val-

ues over the whole time. On the other hand, it can

be seen that nearly for the whole time the values of

the left muscle show an amount of under 100 %. This

means that the left muscle is producing lower voltage

values during the measurement on the Balance Board

than during the reference recording in front of the ex-

erciser. On the contrary, the voltage values of the right

M. tibialis anterior were between 200 and 2000 %.

This ﬁnding is a reason to assume, that the accessory

muscles, like the ischiocrural muscles, are mostly re-

sponsible for the maintenance of the functions of the

M. gluteus maximus.

The lower section of ﬁgure 5 shows the course

of the total power of the left and right M. gluteus

maximus. Fatigue is deﬁned in muscle physiology

as a state when a subject can no longer maintain a

required force (Merletti and Parker, 2004). Hence,

the maintenance demands an increasing recruitment

of motor units (Lukas, 2000). Although, the left M.

gluteus maximus produces lower voltage values, the

total power of the left muscle is nearly the whole time

higher than the total power of the right body side.

Consequently, the left muscle had recruited a higher

number of motor units despite the lower voltage val-

ues.

The illustration 6 provides a brief overview of the

complete muscular activity of each muscle on each

exerciser for both test persons. The muscle with

the highest strain from both subjects represents the

100 %. The values of the remaining muscles from

both test persons were presented in relation to the

100 %.

The complete muscular activity for test person one

for each muscle and each exerciser is documented

in the upper part of the ﬁgure 6. The 100 % were

achieved by the right M. tibiales anterior during the

execution of the trial on the forward-backward Rocker

Board. Furthermore, the second highest value was

achieved on the same exerciser but in this case by the

left M. tibialis anterior.

The ﬁgure also points out that the strain of the

individual exercisers aims to different muscles. Us-

ing the Balance Board mostly burdens the left and

right M. vastus lateralis. In contrast, the M. erector

spinae shows for both body sides the highest values

on the left-right Rocker Board. As already mentioned

the forward-backward Rocker Board shows the high-

est strain in the M. tibialis anterior. Nevertheless, the

ﬁrst and last exerciser have in common, that the distal

musculature shows the highest values. The ranking

of the overall strain of the three exercisers shows the

order (highest strain ﬁrst): forward-backward Rocker

Board, Balance Board, left-right Rocker Board.

The values of the complete activity of all muscles

on all exercisers of test person two are presented in

the lower part of ﬁgure 6. Test person two obtained

the highest values with the right M. vastus lateralis on

the left-right Rocker Board. The overall comparison

of the three exercisers shows that the Balance Board

seems to be the smallest challenge for the test person.

In contrast, the highest complete strain was achieved

by the left-right Rocker Board. The various forms

of the Rocker Board required different muscles. The

left-right Rocker Board has the highest effort in the

right M. vastus lateralis. On the contrary, the right M.

tibialis anterior shows the highest values during the

usage of the forward-backward Rocker Board. Again,

all exercisers have in common, that the highest values

were documented for the distal musculature. The dif-

ference of the amount of the activity of the leg mus-

cles on the individual exercisers is greater than the

InvestigationoftheSensorimotorTraining-AnalyzingExerciserswithOne-dimensionalandMultidimensionalInstability

single values of the M. gluteus maximus, M. erector

spinae and the M. trapezius descendens.

The illustration also ﬁgures out, that on each exer-

ciser all muscles, except the M. trapezius descendens,

show the highest values for the right body side. All

exercisers have in common, that the EMG activity of

the test person differs. Although the test persons used

the same exercisers and had to handle identical tasks

the individual requirements seem to be different.

Figure 6: Activity - Comparison of the three exercisers.

The current ﬁgure 7 shows the deﬂection into the

direction forward-backward. In the upper part of the

ﬁgure the deﬂection for the Balance Board is shown.

The course of the forward- backward Rocker Board is

shown in the lower part of the ﬁgure.

Figure 7: Balance Board and forward-backward Rocker

Board - Deviation (TP 01).

The Balance Board shows no drift in one direction

over the whole time. Only during the phase “Eyes

closed” (Phase two) a drift can be seen. Immedi-

ately after the visual analyzers, the eyes, are turned on

again, the drift is corrected. In the third phase greater

deﬂections were measured, they are caused by the ad-

ditional difﬁculty induced by the external stimuli of

the medicine ball. On the whole, the course is char-

acterized by small and short deﬂections around the

baseline.

The course of the forward-backward Rocker

Board only shows slight differences during the indi-

vidual phases in the amount of the values of the de-

ﬂection. In the ﬁrst and second phase a short and

small drift was documented. In both cases the drift is

correct after 15/ 20 s. The comparison of the strength

of the deﬂection from the forward-backward Rocker

Board to the intensity of the forward-backward de-

ﬂection of the Balance Board shows differences. The

intensity of the deﬂection of the Rocker Board is

much greater than the intensity of the Balance Board.

Figure 8 serves the comparison of the left-right re-

lation of the M. tibialis anterior on the Balance Board.

Therefore the average maximum voltage values of 18

test persons (two from setup one and 16 subjects from

setup two) were summed up in the box plot.

The ﬁgure points out, that the highest voltage val-

ues were produced by the right M. tibialis anterior

during the second phase “Eyes closed”. One addi-

tional ﬁnding of the right body side during this phase

is, that it has the largest range between the maximal

and the minimal values. This may mean that the in-

dividual persons react in different ways to the elim-

ination of the visual analyzer. The behavior of the

test persons depend on their age, their balance skills,

their muscles, their motor and coordination skills and

so on. This inﬂuential factors cause, that for some

people the consequences regarding the maintenance

of the equilibrium are greater than for others. The ﬁg-

ure 8 also brings out, that in the overview of all test

persons the right side is the dominant body side for

all considered scenarios. On the one hand, every time

the median value is higher on the right side of the M.

tibialis anterior. On the other hand, the 75 th per-

centile is also always greater on the right body side.

In addition, the left body side has always the lowest

minimum values (25 th percentiles).

Figure 8: Comparions of the average maximum voltage val-

ues of both body sides.

The current box plot of ﬁgure 9 shows the aver-

age maximum voltage values of the test person from

both setups for the M. tibialis anterior and the M. glu-

teus maximus. On the one hand the measured val-

ues again document that the major part of the work

is done by the distal musculature. The median value

of the M. tibialis is up to four times higher than the

median value of the M. gluteus maximus. The docu-

icSPORTS2013-InternationalCongressonSportsScienceResearchandTechnologySupport

mented values of the M. gluteus maximus correspond

to the activity values during the reference measure-

ment in front of the exerciser. Consequently, it is

shown that the continuation of the muscular activity

up to the proximal musculature has only a small ex-

tent because the demand to the musculature is slightly

higher than in demand in front of the exerciser.

Figure 9: Comparions of the average maximum voltage val-

ues of M. tibialis anterior and M. gluteus maximus.

For further statistical analyzes the “Chi-squared”

test was performed for the 18 test persons from setup

one and setup two when using the Balance Board.

The statistical investigation was made for the average

maximum values for the left and right M. tibialis an-

terior. Therefore a comparison of the voltage values

of each test person was computed. For each subject

a decision which body side reached the higher values

was made. The evaluation was fulﬁlled for each phase

and for the overall measurement. Consequently, the

hypothesis, that there is no dependency between

the maximum values and the body side, was rejected

to signiﬁcance level of 5 %.

4 DISCUSSION

The experimental study points out four important

ﬁndings. Firstly, the assumption that the muscles of

nearly the whole body were involved in the process

of the maintenance of the equilibrium on the exer-

cisers could not be proofed. Secondly, there is a

different behavior regarding the left and right mus-

culature. The third ﬁnding is, that it is not pos-

sible to make a general assumption, that exercisers

with a one-dimensional instability are easier to handle

than the exercisers with a multidimensional instabil-

ity. The last ﬁnding is, that each test person shows an

individual behavior on the exercisers.

The analyzes of setup one showed, that the major

part of the work for the maintenance of the equilib-

rium is done by the distal musculature. To achieve

a higher participation of the proximal musculature

an external stimuli, like catching and throwing of a

medicine ball is needed. Especially, for the left and

right M. gluteus maximus low voltage values were

documented. This observation leads to the hypothe-

sis that the ischiocrural musculature takes the job of

the M. gluteus maximus.

The study of the voltage values of the left and right

body side was carried out for both setups. The investi-

gation of setup one showed that in most cases the right

musculature achieved the higher voltage values. In

particular, the distal musculature of the left and right

body side often shows great differences between the

maximum voltage values as well as between the accu-

mulated EMG activity. This ﬁnding was supported by

the statistical analyzes of the maximum voltage val-

ues for subjects of setup one and two.

Both, the EMG data and the motion data of the

three exercisers, showed, that it is not possible to

determine the difﬁculty of an exerciser by one- or

multidimensional instability. The exercisers with the

one-dimensional instability were in both cases the

one with the greater deﬂection and the greater volt-

age values. However, both test persons from setup

one achieved the highest values on different Rocker

Boards.

The overall ﬁnding is, that it is not possible to

make general assumptions about the usage as well as

about the effects of the exercisers. This is due to the

fact that the test persons showed an individual behav-

ior on the equipment.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The investigation of the three exercisers reveals that

it is necessary to analyze the sensorimotor training

more detailed. It is not enough to take the manufac-

tures information, the literature as well as the practical

knowledge in consideration. Rather the results show

that the application and the corresponding effects of

the exercisers depend on the behavior of the subject.

One solution for the improvement and the veriﬁcation

of the training is the application of wireless sensors.

The usage of wireless sensors is a helpful instrument

to analyze the behavior of different subjects on the

exercisers. Consequently, the physiotherapist has to

consider the characteristics of the patient in the plan-

ning of the therapy. Furthermore, the use of wireless

sensors are a very good way to document the develop-

ment and the results of the therapy. The physiothera-

pist are able to control the changes of the behavior of

the muscles.

A second point for an effective planning of the

therapy is excellent knowledge about the exerciser. In

the majority of cases the product descriptions include

InvestigationoftheSensorimotorTraining-AnalyzingExerciserswithOne-dimensionalandMultidimensionalInstability

information of the material, the height, the diameter

and sometimes the angle of deﬂection. All analyzed

exercisers have similar values regarding the height,

the diameter as well as the angle of deﬂection. Nev-

ertheless, the test persons showed different activation

patterns. This leads to the recommendation that the

product descriptions should include additional infor-

mation, for example about the own weight of the ex-

erciser or information about the special characteristics

of the supporting surface.

The current results can be extended to a more de-

tailed investigation of the behavior of the muscles in

dependency of the movement on the exerciser and

with a greater number of test persons. With the help

of the mobile sensors it is also possible to give an im-

mediate feedback for the correction of the dominance

of one body side. This different behavior of the body

sides will be analyzed more detailed in further stud-

ies. In this context we will also analyze whether the

dominance of the right side is caused by the fact that

the test persons were all right handed.

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