Abstract
The automatic classification of cross-country (XC) skiing techniques using data from wearable sensors has the potential to provide insights for optimizing the performance of professional skiers. In this paper, we propose a unified deep learning model for classifying eight techniques used in classical and skating styles XC-skiing and optimize this model for the number of gyroscope sensors by analyzing the results for five different configurations of sensors. We collected data of four professional skiers on outdoor flat and natural courses. The model is first trained over the flat course data of two skiers and tested over the flat and natural course data of a third skier in a leave-one-out fashion, resulting in a mean accuracy of ~80% over three combinations. Secondly, the model is trained over the flat course data of three skiers and tested over flat course and natural course data of one new skier, resulting in a mean accuracy of 87.2% and 95.1% respectively, using the optimal sensor configuration (five gyroscope sensors: both hands, both feet, and the pelvis). High classification accuracy obtained using both approaches indicates that this deep learning model has the potential to be deployed for real-time classification of skiing techniques by professional skiers and coaches.
Highlights
IntroductionCross-country (XC) skiing is a whole-body exercise endurance sport, which requires prolonged complex cyclical motions performed using skis and poles on the snow [1]
We utilized a novel convolutional neural network (CNN)-long-short term memory (LSTM) based deep learning approach to develop a unified model for the classification of eight techniques used in classical and skating styles for XC-skiing
We achieved an accuracy of 87.2% and 95.1% on the flat and natural course test sets using the optimal sensor configuration
Summary
Cross-country (XC) skiing is a whole-body exercise endurance sport, which requires prolonged complex cyclical motions performed using skis and poles on the snow [1]. There are two main styles in XC-skiing: the classical and the skating style. The classical style can be performed both on prepared trails with pairs of parallel grooves cut into the snow or on natural undisturbed snow whereas the skating style is generally performed on firm and smooth snow surfaces. Each of the classical and skating styles have four techniques or gears. These are diagonal stride (DS), double poling (DP), push-off (P-Off), and kick-double poling (KDP) for the classical style, and V2 skate (V2), V2A skate
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