Conférencières > Benedicte VANWANSEELE

Prof Benedicte VANWANSEELE -- KU LEUVEN Belgium

KEYNOTE

Detecting compensations in running biomechanics: from the lab towards optimizing performance and rehabilitation.

Recreational distance running is one of the most popular forms of physical activity. Running confers health benefits ranging from the prevention of chronic diseases to improvements in mental health. Unfortunately, running is still characterized by a high (re)occurrence of musculoskeletal overuse injuries. Attempts to identify risk factors for RRIs have mainly yielded poor results. The main reasons for these poor results are that they mainly use a reductionist approach that disregards the complex multifactorial nature of RRIs, are retrospective laboratory studies, and do not monitor musculoskeletal load during training sessions.

The combination of wearable technology with the use artificial intelligence (AI) and biomechanical knowledge to model data collected during training session has contributed to a better understanding of the complex interactions between environment, fatigue and injuries. We will discuss further the importance of hardware, feature extraction and data management to obtain good data and models.

SHORT VITA

Prof. VANWANSEELE is a full professor and the head of the Human Movement Biomechanics research group at the Department of Movement Sciences, KU LEUVEN. She is an international recognized expert in sports biomechanics covering highly specialized biomechanical modelling techniques as well as field-based measures. She has published more than 100 full papers in peer-reviewed international journal, attracted research grants, supervised 15 PhD students to completion and is currently supervising 10 PhD students. She has presented her research at several national and international conferences.

Prof. VANWANSEELE focuses her research on developing insights and innovative methodologies to achieve personalized rehabilitation and training regimes to enable each of us to perform optimally. Prof. VANWANSEELE is also involved in the implementation of evidence-based methods to improve training programs for elite athletes such as the Belgian national hockey team and is the co-founder of a Spin-off company RunEasi.