Interpretation of the acceleration obtained by an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) in countermovement jump, in Athletics' elite athletes

This study aimed to correlate the vertical acceleration obtained by an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and the biomechanical paramters obtained by a force plate (FP). Eight athletes (six males and two females: Aged 26+/-3.61; body mass: 73.19+/-8.96Kg; and height: 1.77+/-0.08m) with international representation by their countries were included in the study. An IMU developed collecting at 275Hz and a Bertex FP collecting at 1000Hz were used to obtain the selected biomechanical parameters. Statistical Pearson and Spearman correlation with the vertical acceleration obtained by IMU. Through the linear regression models, the vertical acceleration root mean square (RMS) obtained a higher explanation with a R^2=59.2%. The proposed model showed that higher vertical acceleration RMS is associated with high force values and high-rate force development, and small temporal values in negative and positive impulse and rate force development.