Using markerless motion analysis to determine the effect of body armour on hip and shoulder mobility and dynamic tasks

Sports technology is an evolving field of human movement performance evaluation and injury monitoring, most notably in the military. Monitoring and screening are essential, as adequate mobility for task completion is required for military personnel who encounter high-risk situations with equipped gear such as body armour. As the weight and composition of the body armour increases, range of motion (ROM) and mobility in single- and multi-joint movements decreases due to increased restrictions, discomfort, and pressures. The current thesis is divided into four Chapters. Chapter 1 is a review of the literature investigating body armour and its effects on hip and shoulder mobility and standardised tasks and screening movements. The literature review confirmed that hip and shoulder mobility impairments and restrictions are prevalent when donning body armour compared to no body armour. Additionally, when body armour was equipped, dynamic movements such as squats, inline lunges, and rope climbing also had negative associations with ROM and mobility. Chapters 2 and 3 explore the use of the VALD HumanTrak to assess and screen military personnel while wearing body armour. Chapter 2 describes the study protocol that was used for this thesis. The original research conducted in Chapter 3 concluded that tasks over a large ROM that involve movement towards or perpendicular to the camera tended to have greater reliability, regardless of wearing body armour. Tasks involving small ROM and movements away from the camera or out of the frontal or sagittal plane tended to have less reliability. Lastly, Chapter 4 discusses the critical findings in the literature review and original research and brings them together to provide recommendations for military and clinical use alongside future research recommendations.