Agreement, Accuracy, and Reliability of a New Algorithm for the Detection of Change of Direction Angle Based on Integrating Inertial Data from Inertial Sensors

The development of algorithms applied to new technologies allows a better understanding of many of the movements in team sports. The purpose of this work was to analyze the validity, precision, and reproducibility of an algorithm to detect angulation of changes of direction (CoDs) while running, of between 45° and 180°, both to the left and the right at different speeds, in a standardized context. For this, five participants performed a total of 200 CoDs at 13 km/h and 128 CoDs at 18 km/h while wearing three inertial sensors. The information obtained from the sensors was contrasted with observation and coding using high-resolution video. Agreement between systems was assessed using Bland–Altman 95% limits of agreement as well as effect size (ES) and % difference between means. Reproducibility was evaluated using the standard error (CV%). The algorithm overestimated the angulation of 90° and 135° to the right (Cohen’s d > 0.91). The algorithm showed high precision when the angulations recorded at 13 km/h and 18 km/h were compared, except at 45° to the left (mean bias = −2.6°; Cohen’s d = −0.57). All angulations showed excellent reproducibility (CV < 5%) except at 45° (CV = 11%), which worsened when the pre-CoD speed was 18 km/h (CV < 16%). The algorithm showed a high degree of validity and reproducibility to detect angles during CoDs.