Do athletics have to “think” about their reaction, and could performance be improved by “training” the muscles to do what seemingly comes so naturally? That remains a question to ask, but an engineering team from Imperial College London has created a wearable, vibrating armband called “Ghost,” which reportedly can train a person’s muscles and teach the user to move like professional athletes.
So instead of being shown how to swing a golf club like Tiger Woods, the Ghost makes the muscles react a certain way and through “muscle memory” the user can essentially replicate the movement time and time again.
The question we have isn’t whether this actually could turn any regular “Joe” into a tennis pro, but whether it would eventually make numerous players all have the same type of skills? And in the future could this be something that could be programmed? Either way it sort of takes the fun out of training – not that everyone agrees that hitting balls at the driving range or swinging at a tennis pitching machine is fun.
[Via PhysOrg: Vibrating armband helps athletes make the right moves]