Abstract
While inertial measurement units (IMU) have become an integral part of sports performance analysis, upper body-mounted IMUs have been found to exhibit poor reliability in measuring lower-limb loading. In racket sports, IMUs have been placed in a number of positions on the upper body, lower body and racket in a research setting. A potential limitation to the concurrent use of multiple IMUs is that coaches may be reluctant to allow their athletes to wear the units during training and competition due to concerns that the units would interfere with athlete movement. This study seeks to understand the perceptions of racket sports coaches towards the use of IMUs in training and competition. A total of 58 racket sport coaches responded to a survey on the use of IMUs during training and competition. Based on the responses, 96.6% (56 out of 58) of coaches indicated that they would allow their athletes to wear IMUs in training, while 65.5% (38 out of 58) would allow their athletes to wear IMUs during competition. For use in training, 9 of the 14 suggested IMU placements received significant positive responses. However, none of the suggested IMU placements received significant positive responses for use during competition and 11 of the 14 received significant negative responses. This suggests that while coaches understand the benefits of collecting data from IMUs during competition. Despite this, for use in training, a number of upper and lower body-mounted IMUs placements have the potential to be part of regular monitoring in racket sports.
Highlights
The use of micro-technology has become an integral part of sports performance analysis, with the majority of the commercially-available microtechnology units containing inertial measurement units (IMUs) (Chambers et al, 2015)
A potential limitation to the concurrent use of multiple IMUs is that coaches may be reluctant to allow their athletes to wear the units during training and competition due to concerns that the units would interfere with athlete movement
The findings from this study demonstrate that a significant majority (96.6%) of racket sports coaches would allow their athletes to wear IMUs during training
Summary
The use of micro-technology has become an integral part of sports performance analysis, with the majority of the commercially-available microtechnology units containing inertial measurement units (IMUs) (Chambers et al, 2015). IMUs allow athletes to perform normal movements with little encumbrances in their normal training environment rather than in a sports science or biomechanics laboratory (Zok, 2014). IMUs provide a means to obtain movement data for indoor, court-based sports. The use of IMUs avoid many of the limitations of videobased time-motion analysis, such as challenges with line of sight, inconsistent inter-operator reliability (Barris & Button, 2008), time consuming marking up of individuals and labour-intensiveness of data collection (Dobson & Keogh, 2007); and GPS which has limitations of accurately assessing movement in court-based sports (Duffield et al, 2010) and an inability to be used in an outdoor setting without sufficient satellite coverage (Dellaserra et al, 2014). It is possible that IMUs could offer a significant advantage for the collection of data associated with indoor court based movement
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