A team of crack defiantists.

We do things a little differently at eo because great things happen when you defy convention. Knowledge collides in new and unusual ways. Ground-breaking innovations are born. Ideas are put into action.

There’s a wealth of research, studies, and new information out there – but most of it sits in specialist silos. Research for research’s sake rather than with a particular purpose in mind. Good on you, we say, but that’s not what we do.

Our scientists explore widely in the realms of science and technology for smart applications in sport. Our lab is a place where the latest research from all fields combines into something special on the field. Or in the pool. Or wherever you get your kicks. From microfluidics to miniaturisation, in-field testing to wearable tech. We’re pretty agnostic about where these discoveries come from. We only care about where they can take us.

You won’t find geeks in our lab. You will find innovative defiantists, putting knowledge to use to push the world forward.

 

Our defiantists are leaders in sport performance. Let us introduce you to some of them:


scientific team

Dr Kenneth Graham PHD

Principal Scientist

Dr Paul Bloomfield

Chief Medical Consultant

CONSULTING team

John Quinn

Clinical Exercise Physiologist

Jock Campbell

High Performance Director, Jock Athletic

Nik Popovic

Head Performance Coach, University of Southern California

Our scientific approach

When the eo scientists put pen to paper they’re not looking to collect data measurements that are sorta, kinda accurate. It has to be dead on – or it’s not worth doing. We’re not throwing stuff at walls and seeing what sticks. We’re testing, refining, testing, refining, on and on until we know what we’re delivering is useful and accurate. If it’s not, it’s not worth doing. And we won’t do it.

Research papers

Olympic performances have improved dramatically over the last hundred years, driven to a great extent by the emergence of sports science. The aim of this study is to describe a new aspect of sports science, the role of mathematics and physics in the precision training of 2024 Olympic swimming hopefuls.

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The validity/reliability/accuracy of sensors used in sport are important to allow for confidence in the quantitative changes in values measured and recorded. The use of first principle physical techniques for evaluating the values recorded by sensors allows for both tracing measures back to known standards and easy replication by others. 

This document outlines a seiers of measures designed to assess the accuracy and reliability of the IMU sensors in eo SwimBETTER to detect displacement (distance) ini a controlled condition.

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The validity/reliability/accuracy of sensors used in sport are important to allow for confidence in the quantitative changes in values measured and recorded. The use of first principle physical techniques for evaluating the values recorded by sensors allows for both tracing measures back to known standards and easy replication by others. 

This document outlines an initial series of pressure measures on 4 handsets (8 sensors) conducted at an aquatic centre with a 5-metre deep pool. 

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https://doi.org/10.1080/14763141.2019.1650102

The aim of the study was to investigate whether jerk cost (JC) can discriminate between swimming levels. Nine elite and nine non-elite swimmers swam a 50-m front-crawl sprint wearing a 3D accelerometer on their back between the inferior angles of the scapulae. Lap times and JC were calculated from the acceleration signal and compared between groups and between swimmers within a group. The elite swimmers swam significantly faster lap times than the non-elite swimmers (p < 0.001). They did so with significantly lower levels of JC compared to the non-elite swimmers (p = 0.005). Furthermore, a stepwise multiple linear regression showed JC accounted for 32.9% of the variation in lap time of the elite swimmers. These results indicate that it is possible to discriminate elite from non-elite swimmers using JC: elite swimmers swim with lower JCs than non-elite swimmers. Additionally, swimming at higher speed is associated with more accelerations and decelerations in both elite and non-elite swimmers, which is reflected by higher JCs and lower smoothness. In sum, JC provides an index of swimming technique that is easy to use in training practice.

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Context: In front-crawl swimming, the upper limbs perform alternating movements with the aim of achieving a continuous application of force in the water, leading to lower intracyclic velocity variation (dv). This parameter has been identified as a crucial criterion for swimmers’ evaluation.

Purpose: To examine the assessment of intracyclic force variation (dF) and to analyze its relationship with dv and swimming performance

Methods: A total of 22 high-level male swimmers performed a maximal-effort 50-m front-crawl time trial and a 30-s maximal-effort fully tethered swimming test, which were randomly assigned. Instantaneous velocity was obtained by a speedometer and force by a strain-gauge system.

Results: Similarity was observed between the tests, with dF attaining much higher magnitudes than dv (P < .001; d = 8.89). There were no differences in stroke rate or in physiological responses between tethered and free swimming, with a high level of agreement for the stroke rate and blood lactate increase. Swimming velocity presented a strong negative linear relationship with dF (r = −.826, P < .001) and a moderate negative nonlinear relationship with dv (r = .734, P < .01). With the addition of the maximum impulse to dF, multiple-regression analysis explained 83% of the free-swimming performance.

Conclusions: Assessing dF is a promising approach for evaluating a swimmer’s performance. From the experiments, this new parameter showed that swimmers with higher dF also present higher dv, leading to a decrease in performance.

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The aim of this study was to propose a group of parameters able to quantify not only arm coordination but also inter limb coordination. These include the well know index of coordination with the relative duration of the stroke phases and two new parameters: the Index of synchronization (Ids) between arms and legs actions; and the Index of inter limb coordination (IdIC) calculated as the relative foot position during successive arm stroke phases. These parameters were compared between experts and amateur swimmers in a maximal front crawl sprint. The influence of arm stroke in leg kick parameters was also assessed, comparing the full stroke condition with a condition without arms actions. Sixty-five per cent of expert swimmers used synchronized limb actions while 95% of amateur swimmers used non-synchronized limb motions. These synchronized expert swimmers also converged towards a specific coordination pattern between foot position and arm stroke phases. In the condition without arms, both groups changed kick rate and amplitude. The present study reveals the interdependency of arms and legs actions and the importance of coordination and synchronization between limbs. Therefore, the proposed group of overall indexes of coordination provides a more complete marker for the analysis of swimming technique.

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SEE THE PRODUCT

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/neu.2022.0248

A five year study conducted in collaboration with Lund University, the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) and HockeyAllsvenskan (HA), showed that treated players showed an immediate relief of symptoms and returned to play significantly sooner when using PolarCap® by eo. The study also found that long-term absences of three weeks or more were reduced by almost 80 percent among treated players.

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