Wearable Inertial Sensor Systems for Lower Limb Exercise Detection and Evaluation: A Systematic Review

Area of Science:

• Biomechanics
• Sports Science
• Wearable Technology

Background:

• Traditional lower limb exercise analysis methods (3D motion capture, depth cameras, professional observation, self-assessment) have limitations.
• Assessing lower limb exercise quality is crucial for performance and injury prevention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review and evaluate studies investigating the use of inertial measurement unit (IMU) technologies for assessing lower limb exercise movement quality.

Main Methods:

• Systematic review of studies from PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Scopus.
• Inclusion criteria: English articles, last 10 years, IMU systems for repetition-based lower limb exercises.
• Study quality assessed using adapted STROBE criteria; studies categorized by function (detection, classification, validation).

Main Results:

• 47 papers included from 2452 identified articles.
• 26 of the 47 studies were rated as high quality.
• Research focus over the last decade has been on measurement validation and exercise quality classification.

Conclusions:

• Wearable inertial sensor systems for lower limb exercise analysis represent a rapidly advancing research area.
• Current research predominantly validates IMU measurements and classifies exercise quality.
• Limited user evaluation and no clinical trials exist to date in this field.