New fabric could help singers and athletes train breathing ‘to match pros’

By Tom Campbell via SWNS

A new fabric that 'records' muscle movement when you breathe could allow athletes to train better and help people recover quicker from respiratory disease.

The fibers record the breathing of top athletes and can then be worn by others where it will move in time to the professional, allowing them to mimic their breathing pattern.

It could also help train singers as the garment stretches and compresses to mimic the top performers.

This could also help patients who are recovering from major surgeries or respiratory diseases such as COVID, say scientists.

The fibers, dubbed OmniFibers, are extremely narrow in size and made from affordable materials.

They are also perfectly safe to use on human skin since the outer layer is made from a material resembling polyester, commonly used to make clothes.

Study author Ozgun Afsar said: “The shortcomings of most existing artificial muscle fibres are that they are either thermally activated, which can cause overheating when used in contact with human skin, or they have low power efficiency or arduous training processes.

“These systems often have slow response and recovery times, limiting their immediate usability in applications that require rapid feedback.”

The fiber, which resembles a strand of yarn, has five layers and contains a fluid channel in the center.

This channel acts as an ‘artificial muscle,' with sensors then able to detect and measure the degree of stretching of the fiber.

A type of undergarment, which singers can wear to monitor and play back the movement of their breathing, was designed by the researchers to test their new fabric.

Afsar, a doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, said: “Singing is particularly close to home, as my mom is an opera singer - she’s a soprano.

“I really wanted to capture this expertise in a tangible form.”

Movement data was collected from the garment’s sensors while the singer performed.

It was then turned into tactile feedback, which could be used to teach untrained vocalists to mimic the singer’s breathing.

Afsar said: “We eventually were able to achieve both the sensing and the modes of actuation that we wanted in the textile, to record and replay the complex movements that we could capture from an expert singer’s physiology and transpose it to a nonsinger, a novice learner’s body.

“So, we are not just capturing this knowledge from an expert, but we are able to haptically transfer that to someone who is just learning.”

The same approach could be used to help athletes learn how to control their breathing in different contexts, the researchers say.

Eventually, the garments could help patients regain healthy breathing patterns after major surgery or a respiratory disease such as Covid-19.

Senior author professor Hiroshi Ishii said: “Everybody has to breathe. Breathing has a major impact on productivity, confidence, and performance.

“Breathing is important for singing, but also this can help when recovering from surgery or depression. For example, breathing is so important for meditation.”

The physiology of breathing is “quite complex” and identifying which muscles are being used to breath remains a challenge to this day.

To address this, the researchers designed a separate module that monitors the wearer's muscle groups as they breathe in and out.

But their system could also be used to study other types of muscle movements and activities, the researchers say.

Ishii added: “Many of our artists studied amazing calligraphy, but I want to feel the dynamics of the stroke of the brushes, which might be accomplished with a sleeve and glove made of this closed-loop-feedback material.

“Olympic athletes might sharpen their skills by wearing a garment that reproduces the movements of a top athlete, whether a weightlifter or a skier.”

A manufacturing system that is capable of producing longer filaments is already on the horizon along with other technical improvements.

The findings are due to be presented at the Association for Computing Machinery’s User Interface Software and Technology online conference.