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Kicking prowess is subjected to flexibility of leg. The coach is able to improve the athlete’s kicking competency if the leg flexibility is known. In this paper, a wearable leg flexibility-monitoring device using flex sensor and Internet of Things (IoT) platform has been successfully developed and tested. The Arduino NodeMCU microcontroller will process and convert the input received from the flex sensor and transmit the real time kicking angle and corresponding resistance data to the two main outputs; the ThingSpeak IoT platform and the LCD display for real monitoring. Thirty participants were recruited from two different backgrounds; silat athletes (n=20) and normal participants (n=10). The participants were distributed into six weight categories; (50-55 kg), (55-60 kg), (60-65 kg), (65-70 kg), (70-75 kg) and (75-80 kg). Based on the average angle measured from three trials, it can be observed that different participant presents different average and standard deviation of leg flexibility independently of weight category. Moreover, the background factor of the subjects involved did not greatly contribute in this research as the participant from normal background has the highest mean leg flexibility (73.89 ± 17.41°). This situation is probably due to no standard of kicking styles that had been set for all participants at the beginning of the experiment. Nonetheless, one conclusive remark that can be deduced from the findings is the flexibility of an individual is greatly influenced by body weight since (75-80 kg) weight category has achieved the lowest mean angle of kicking for both backgrounds; normal (14.00± 1.33°) and silat athlete (23.89± 6.44°) subjects. In the future, additional sensors such as accelerometer can be used to predict the stability of the body for better evaluation of leg flexibility. |
