Our 5th Online Symposium took place online on 8th April 2025, free to ISBS members, with a revamped schedule
This year's symposium focused on providing free opportunities for upskilling within our discipline. The single-day event was inspired by the success of recent pre-conference workshops at the annual conferences and includesdworkshops and presentations on the latest in markerless motion capture, functional data analysis, and applied biomechanics within elite sport. The symposium also featured an update from the ISBS 2025 annual conference team with opportunity for Q&A.
All session recordings are now free and available to all ISBS members.
To view the recordings, individuals will need to renew their ISBS membership for 2025 or join the society. To check your membership status, login online and select the “Member Profile” button. Then click on the “Subscription History” button to confirm your membership status; and if necessary, renew your membership.
Full session recordings are available here (after signing in).
ISBS wish to thank society sponsors Vicon, Qualisys, and Simi for their support of this symposium and all ISBS activities.
Application and advancement of open-source markerless algorithms:
09:00-11:00 BST (GMT+1) Tuesday 8th April
ISBS Members can access the recorded Online Symposium sessions here.
James Baker (Western Australian Institute of Sport, Australia)
Lionel Reveret (National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology, France)
Marion Mundt (Edith Cowan University, Australia)
David Pagnon (University of Bath, UK)
Moderator: Steffi Colyer (University of Bath, UK)
Markerless motion capture (pose estimation) has the potential to enable biomechanical analyses to be routinely conducted in the absence of specialised, high-cost equipment, outside the laboratory setting. Several open-source algorithms and tools exist to enable researchers and practitioners to conduct markerless analyses but for many applications these are limited by their accuracy, sparsity of data, customisability and usability. This session will include three 15-minute scientific presentations highlighting how open-source algorithms can be applied to sport biomechanics problems and how research is currently targeting the above limitations of pose estimation algorithms. The second half of the session will include an in-depth explanation of Pose2Sim, which is a fully open-source, flexible, and user-friendly solution for multi-person markerless kinematic analysis. This will include a demonstration of its main features and a presentation of future plans.
Functional data analysis:
12:00-14:00 BST (GMT+1) Tuesday 8th April
ISBS Members can access the recorded Online Symposium sessions here.
Drew Harrison (University of Limerick, Ireland)
Edward Gunning (University of Pennsylvania, USA)
John Warmenhoven (University of Technology Sydney, Australia)
Functional Data Analysis (FDA) is a relatively new statistical framework that analyses any measure that varies continuously such as curves, surfaces, shapes and other continua, therefore it is especially useful in analysis of biomechanical data sets. Following a pre-conference workshop on FDA at the ISBS conference Salzburg (2024), several delegates indicated they would like a session focusing on preparing data sets for analysis using the FDA R package. Therefore, we offer this online mid-year symposium session on preparing Biomechanical data sets for analysis in the FDA R Package. The session will demonstrate the specific data preparation procedures and steps that are necessary to implement analysis of sample biomechanical data. Participants will have the opportunity gain advice on preparing some their own data for analysis. Prior knowledge of FDA will be an advantage, the recent text provides a useful resource on FDA in Biomechanics.
ISBS 2025 Annual conference details and Q&A:
15:00-16:00 BST (GMT+1) Tuesday 8th April
ISBS Members can access the recorded Online Symposium sessions here.
Rony Ibrahim (Qatar University, Qatar)
Paul Grimshaw (Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar)
Lina Majed (Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar)
Philip Graham-Smith (Manchester Metropolitan University; formerly Aspire Academy, Qatar)
Moderators: Tim Exell (University of Portsmouth, UK) and Silvio Lorenzetti (Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland)
Meet the organizing committee of ISBS 2025 during the symposium. We’ll introduce the exciting plans for this year’s conference in Qatar, themed “Innovation, Technology, and Tradition,” and share everything you need to know about key dates, venues, and what to expect in Doha. Bring your questions and join us as we look forward to welcoming the global biomechanics community to Qatar in 2025!
Connecting biomechanics and performance - applied perspectives from elite sport:
20:30-22:00 BST (GMT+1) Tuesday 8th April
ISBS Members can access the recorded Online Symposium sessions here.
Oliver Logan (Aquatics GB, UK)
Emma Mosscrop (UK Sports Institute, UK)
Helen Bayne (Western Australian Institute of Sport, Australia)
Will Vandenburg (Los Angeles Dodgers, USA)
Moderator: Dan Williams (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)
The field of biomechanics in sport is growing, with biomechanists playing a crucial role in enhancing athletic performance, reducing injury risk, and optimizing technique. As technology advances, the ability to measure and analyse movement using sophisticated techniques has become more readily available. However, it is key that biomechanics data are communicated clearly to athletes, coaches, and other practitioners, and translated into actionable insights to ensure impact. To explore the application of biomechanics in elite sport, four applied practitioners from leading sporting organizations in the UK, US and Australia will each deliver 15-minute presentations, sharing insights from their work. The following 30 minutes will provide an opportunity for questions and discussion on the practical application and communication of biomechanics techniques in high-performance sport.
