Missouri working with 3-D mapping and motion capture to prevent injuries

Yesterday, Fox Sports Midwest published an interesting piece about the lengths to which Mizzou is willing to go to prevent injury. Dynamic Athletics, a company out of Lenexa, Kan., has been doing 3-D mapping on Mizzou players for use and analysis this fall.

Mizzou's athletic department this spring is using the tech as well to create a backlog of motion-capture files -- 2,310 just for Tiger football players -- for the university's training and sports medicine staffs.

"Throughout the season, we'll be able to test themselves (against) themselves," says Ryan Moodie, Dynamic's chief information officer and co-founder. "How are you progressing? What kind of degradation patterns are we seeing?

"Instead of looking at general metrics, we can look at more specifics. How do you compare to when you're healthy? So we can make more informed decisions about (returning) to play."

Patrick and Ryan say Mizzou is DARI's first big-time collegiate client and that the school will have access to mo-cap files for multiple sports.

This is both exciting and predictable. At this year's Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, there was quite a bit of chatter about injury prevention becoming a big piece of the future of sports analytics. All the projections in the world regarding talent and production really don't matter if you can't keep your starters on the field, so a lot of teams are looking into the best ways to do that, especially at the pro level. It's great to see Mizzou potentially becoming a front-runner in that regard, especially if it prevents another damn 2012.

The Carlton Blues, an Australian Rules Football team in Melbourne, are in their second year with DARI, and this past season "was a zero-ACL (injury) year," Patrick says. "We're talking the first time in 100 years they've had an ACL-free season."

Read the whole piece. Very cool.