Instrumented Treadmill for Cross-Country Skiing Enhanced Training

In order to meet the need for indoor training, Rodby has developed a special ski-skating treadmill that allows cross-country skiers to test their physical performance under laboratory conditions, using classical and freestyle techniques on roller skis by adjusting both the inclination of the slope as well as its speed. However, both inclination and speed are adjusted manually by an operator or set at the beginning of the test thus making it very difficult to recreate real skiing conditions. Thanks to the cooperation with the Italian national ski team, the treadmill was equipped with some additional sensors that allowed to continuously adjust the slope to simulate a real track of cross-country skiing as well as the speed to account for the different skiing performances of the athletes under test. Both the design of the additional measurement system as well as of the control algorithm is presented.