A New Foot-Mounted Inertial Measurement System in Soccer: Reliability and Comparison to Global Positioning Systems for Velocity Measurements during Team Sport Actions

Abstract

The aims of this study were to i) compare a foot-mounted inertial system (PlayerMaker™) to three commercially available Global Positioning Systems (GPS) for measurement of velocity-based metrics during team sport movements and ii) evaluate the inter-unit reliability of the PlayerMaker™. Twelve soccer players completed a soccer simulation, whilst wearing a PlayerMaker™ and three GPS (GPS#1, #2 and #3). A sub-sample (n = 7) also wore two PlayerMaker™ systems concurrently. The PlayerMaker™ measured higher (p < 0.05) total distance (518 ± 15 m) compared to GPS#1 (488 ± 15 m), GPS#2 (486 ± 15 m), and GPS#3 (501 ± 14 m). This was explained by greater (p < 0.05) distances in the 1.5-3.5 m/s zone (356 ± 24 m vs. 326 ± 26 m vs. 324 ± 18 m vs. 335 ± 24 m) and the 3.51-5.5 m/s zone (64 ± 18 m vs. 35 ± 5 vs. 43 ± 8 m vs. 41 ± 8 m) between the PlayerMaker™, GPS#1, GPS#2 and GPS#3, respectively. The PlayerMaker™ recorded higher (p < 0.05) distances while changing speed. There were no systematic differences (p > 0.05) between the two PlayerMaker™ systems. The PlayerMaker™ is reliable and records higher velocity and distances compared to GPS.