Swimming phase-based performance evaluation using a single IMU in front crawl

The purpose of this study was to assess the potential of using a sacrum-worn inertial measurement unit (IMU) for performance evaluation in each swimming phase (wall push-off, glide, stroke preparation, and swimming) of national-level swimmers in front crawl technique. Nineteen swimmers were asked to wear a sacrum IMU and swim four one-way 25-m trials in front crawl, attached to a tethered speedometer and filmed by cameras in the whole lap for validation. Based on the literature, several goal metrics were defined over speedometer data, each one representing the performance of the swimmer either in one phase (maximum velocity of wall push-off phase) or several phases (time of 15 meters for wall push-off, glide, stroke preparation phases). Following a macro-micro approach, the IMU parameters of each swimming phase were used to predict the goal metrics. The selected IMU parameters were in line with the characteristics of movement within each phase and can estimate the corresponding goal metric with an R2 over 0.8 and relative RMSE lower than 10%.