Karen meets NIRS: How to use a new wearable tech to optimize pacing

The new kid on the block? 🔥

🩸💪 NIRS (near infrared spectroscopy) is a new wearable technology that measures oxygenation status of the working muscles. Using near infrared light, the device can assess the oxygenated and de-oxygenated red blood cells. Basically, the ones that are still fully saturated vs. the ones that have lost their oxygen molecules.

🏥 Up until recently, the tech has been used exclusively in clinics during acute trauma or other pathologies, mainly because it was not ‘wearable’ and required expensive fiber optics cables. Much progress has been made during the last years which enabled us to use the tech during movements like running, biking and lifting. 🏋️‍♀️

👀 In this slide series we show an example on how NIRS can be used to define the optimal pacing strategy during a typical CrossFit® workout (‘Karen’, 150 wall balls for time). By assessing what went wrong during the first trial, which was sub-optimally paced, we were able to define a better rep scheme (pacing) and increased performance by 14% [see slide 5-6 for more details].

🤝 We collaborated with Train.Red, a company that develops wearable NIRS devices, to provide you more applications of NIRS in the sport of CrossFit® in the future. If you already have some suggestions on what we could test, please post in the comments. 👇

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