Biomechanical Monitoring of Exercise Fatigue Using Wearable Devices: A Review

Abstract

Exercise fatigue is a critical factor that compromises athletic performance, increases the risk of musculoskeletal injury, and threatens safety in military and occupational settings. Reliable monitoring of fatigue is therefore essential for optimizing training, preventing injury, and safeguarding long-term health. Biomechanical indicators, including joint kinematics, ground reaction forces, and electromyographic signals, provide valuable insight into the biomechanical manifestations of fatigue. Although traditional laboratory-based methods are accurate, they are costly, cumbersome, and unsuitable for continuous field monitoring. Recent advances in wearable technologies, particularly inertial measurement units (IMUs), insole pressure sensors (IPSs), and surface electromyography (sEMG), enable continuous, noninvasive, and real-time assessment of biomechanical changes during exercise fatigue. This review synthesizes current progress in IMU-, IPS-, and sEMG-based wearable systems for biomechanical exercise fatigue monitoring, highlighting their principles, strengths, and challenges.