Pressure insoles show fair-to-excellent repeatability for on-ice skating measurements

Short-track speed skating places unusual biomechanical demands on athletes, who repeatedly transition between straightaways and tight curves at high speed. Plantar pressure insoles offer a non-intrusive way to assess the loading patterns generated during these maneuvers, but how repeatable such measurements are under real on-ice conditions has remained poorly documented. A methodology study published in Sports Engineering on 24 October 2026 tested whether pressure insoles, worn inside skating boots during actual short-track sessions, produce consistent measurements from one trial to the next within a single session.

Ten competitive short-track speed skaters, five women and five men with an average age of 18.8 years, an average height of 171.2 centimeters and an average mass of 68.8 kilograms, took part in the study. Each athlete performed repeated on-ice trials while equipped with pressure insoles and triaxial accelerometers, with a wearable camera serving as a reference. A pressure-based algorithm automatically segmented the recorded signals into half-laps.

The team assessed the intra-session repeatability of three types of signals: plantar pressure, the position of the center of pressure under the foot, and acceleration. Repeatability was quantified using intraclass correlation coefficients, standard error of measurement, and statistical parametric mapping with repeated-measures analysis of variance. In addition, the researchers used the root mean square error to quantify variability within a single trial and variability between different trials.

The analysis of variance found no significant trial effects, indicating that the skaters maintained consistent movement patterns across repeated trials within the session. Plantar pressure and center-of-pressure measurements demonstrated fair-to-excellent repeatability, with intraclass correlation coefficients greater than 0.70 for the mediolateral center-of-pressure. In contrast, the acceleration signals showed poor repeatability, with intraclass correlation coefficients below 0.30.

A key technical finding emerged from the root mean square error comparison. Across all variables, the between-trial root mean square error values were lower than the within-trial root mean square error values. This pattern suggests that removing and repositioning the insoles between trials did not substantially increase measurement variability, an important consideration for any protocol that requires athletes to put the equipment back on during a session.

For coaches and sport scientists, the results support the repeatability of pressure insole measurements of plantar loading and center-of-pressure trajectories during genuine short-track skating, rather than only in laboratory simulations. The poor repeatability of the accelerometer signals, however, indicates that wearable acceleration data collected under these high-speed on-ice conditions showed low consistency across trials in this study.

The study’s methodology also combined pressure insoles with a wearable camera for reference and an automatic pressure-based segmentation algorithm for analyzing half-laps. The authors report that these findings support the repeatability of plantar pressure and center-of-pressure measurements obtained with pressure insoles under real on-ice short-track speed skating conditions.

The study was limited to ten athletes tested within a single session, so longer-term reliability across sessions and larger populations remains to be established. Within that scope, the results indicate that pressure and center-of-pressure signals from insoles can be measured consistently in short-track speed skating, while acceleration-based wearable signals were considerably less repeatable in the same setting.

Subject of Research: Intra-session reliability of plantar pressure and center-of-pressure measurements with pressure insoles in competitive short-track speed skating

Article Title: Intra-session reliability of plantar pressure measurements in short-track speed skating

Article References: Hoerter, B., Bost, S., Wagnac, É., & Clément, J. (2026). Intra-session reliability of plantar pressure measurements in short-track speed skating. Sports Engineering, 29(2), Article 41. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12283-026-00576-1

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s12283-026-00576-1

Keywords: short-track speed skating, plantar pressure insoles, center-of-pressure, wearable accelerometers, intra-session reliability, sports engineering, biomechanics, on-ice measurement, wearable sensors, repeatability, Intra-session, reliability