Landmine Press Kinematics Measured with an Enhanced YOLOv8 Model and Mathematical Modeling

The landmine press in a reliable and valid test for assessing upper body push strength. This study developed a markerless, non-contact vision-based system with an enhanced YOLOv8 model and mathematical modeling to measure four kinematic indicators during the concentric phase of the landmine press. By integrating a polarized self-attention mechanism, an improved C3k2 module, and an optimized SPPF structure, the system significantly enhanced detection accuracy and robustness for small targets at both ends of the barbell, achieving an mAP@0.5 of 0.995 on the test set. Agreement validation with the GymAware linear transducer across four loads (20–35 kg) in 247 trials showed strong correlations (r > 0.85) for peak velocity, mean velocity, peak power, and mean power. Although the vision-based method systematically overestimated velocity metrics due to differences in barbell length measurement, the bias was predictable. Moreover, it outperformed GymAware under high-load conditions (35 kg) by avoiding sensor drift and noise. The findings demonstrate that this vision-based system offers a reliable and practical solution for monitoring landmine press kinematics, suitable for both training and scientific research.