Put Your Muscle Into It: Introducing XEM2, a Novel Approach for Monitoring Exertion in Stationary Physical Exercises Leveraging Muscle Work

TL;DR

This paper introduces XEM2, a camera-based system that accurately measures and visualizes muscle exertion during stationary exercises, aiming to improve workout monitoring and prevent imbalances.

Contribution

The paper presents XEM2, a novel system for monitoring muscle exertion that combines the Hill-Type-Muscle-Model with visual feedback, addressing limitations of existing methods.

Findings

XEM2 provides reliable muscle work measurements.

Participants found XEM2 useful for understanding exertion.

XEM2 supports balanced workout monitoring.

Abstract

We present a novel system for camera-based measurement and visualization of muscle work based on the Hill-Type-Muscle-Model: the exercise exertion muscle-work monitor (\textit{XEM}$^{2}$). Our aim is to complement and, thus, address issues of established measurement techniques that offer imprecise data for non-uniform movements (burned calories) or provide limited information on strain across different body parts (self-perception scales). We validate the reliability of XEM's measurements through a technical evaluation of ten participants and five exercises. Further, we assess the acceptance, usefulness, benefits, and opportunities of \textit{XEM}$^{2}$ in an empirical user study. Our results show that \textit{XEM}$^{2}$ provides reliable values of muscle work and supports participants in understanding their workout while also providing reliable information about perceived exertion per muscle group. With this paper, we introduce a novel system capable of measuring and visualizing exertion for single muscle groups, which has the potential to improve exercise monitoring to prevent unbalanced workouts.