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Conference Proceedings Paper Entropy

On an Entropy-based Performance Analysis in Sports

Micael S. Couceiro1,2,3*, Filipe M. Clemente3,4, Gonalo Dias3,4, Pedro Mendes3, Fernando M. L.
Martins3,5 and Rui S. Mendes3
1

Institute of Systems and Robotics, University of Coimbra, Pinhal de Marrocos, Polo II, 3030-290,
Coimbra, Portugal; E-Mail: [email protected] (MSC)
Ingeniarius, Lda., Rua da Vacaria, n.37, 3050-381, Mealhada, Portugal; E-Mail:
[email protected] (MSC)
Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, ESEC, RoboCorp, ASSERT, Rua Dom Joo III Solum, 3030-329
Coimbra, Portugal; E-Mail: [email protected] (MSC); [email protected] (FC);
[email protected]
(GD);
[email protected]
(PM);
[email protected]
(FM);
[email protected] (RM)
Faculty of Sport Sciences and Physical Education, University of Coimbra, Estdio Universitrio de
Coimbra, Pavilho 3, 3040-156 Coimbra, Portugal; E-Mail: [email protected] (FC);
[email protected] (GD)
Instituto de Telecomunicaes, Delegao da Covilh, Convento Santo Antnio, 6201-001 Covilh,
Portugal; E-Mail: [email protected] (FM)

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: [email protected]

Tel.: +351 96 117 14 09.
Received: 17 September 2014 / Accepted: 30 September 2014 / Published: 3 November 2014

Abstract: This paper discusses the major assumptions of influential ecological approaches
on the human movement variability in sports and how it can be analyzed by benefiting from
well-known measures of entropy. These measures are exploited so as to further understand
the performance of athletes from a dynamical and chaotic perspective. Based on the
presented evidences, entropy-based techniques will be considered to measure, analyze and
evaluate the human performance variability under three different case studies: i) golf; ii)
tennis; and iii) soccer. At a first stage, the athletes performance will be analyzed at the
individual level by considering the golf putting (pendulum movement) and the tennis serve
(ballistic movement). Under these gestures, the approximate entropy is considered to extract
the variability inherent to the process variables. Afterwards, the athletes performance will
be analyzed at the collective level by considering the soccer case (team sport). To that end,

2
both approximate entropy and Shannons entropy are mutually considered to assess the
variability of football players trajectory. To outline the applicability of entropy-based
measures to analyze sports, this article ends with an overall reflection about the potential of
such measures towards an increased understanding on the overall human performance. This
methodology proves to be useful to provide decisive information and feedback for coaches,
sports analysts and even for the athletes.
Keywords: sport sciences; chaos and nonlinear dynamics; entropy; performance analysis.
PACS Codes: 37Fxx; 37Mxx; 01.80.+b; 05.45.Tp

1. Introduction
Humans can perform an incredibly wide range of movements [1]. In all of those movements, even in
pendulum and very regular ones, such as the golf putting, the variability is always inherent to human
actions [2]. One of the most understandable reasons behind such variability is the large number of
degrees of freedom from humans motor system [3]. These degrees of freedom are associated to the three
groups of human joints (immovable joint, amphiarthros is joint and diarthrosis/synovial joints) which
accounts for a large range of motion combinations [4]. Despite human variability, it is well known that
there is an invariant part of each specific action which can be observable from repetition to repetition
[5]. The more the invariant part of a specific action is, the more it can be deemed as stable. Nevertheless,
even the most stable movements, such as standing still in the same place, inevitably have small
oscillations inherent to the muscles contractions and joints protection cycles [6]. Therefore, one can state
that the variability represents the complexity of a given movement, or it may simply represent an early
stage of motor learning or the presence of task constraints [7]. In other words, a lower level of variability
arises from a more adaptive organization over the individual degrees of freedom, while, in contrast, a
higher level of variability is related to a lower dimensional output from individual effectors [5]. These
kinds of evidences are imperative in many fields of human interaction, such as medicine, physiotherapy
and sports. In the latter, the ability an athlete has in performing a stable action even under complex
scenarios is challenging and, in spite of that, training is necessary [2].
To understand how variable or unstable a given athlete is, most of the proposed approaches presented
in the literature have been focused in studying the product variables (e.g., number of goals, points or any
other final outcome). In these approaches, the variability is usually expressed as a standard statistical
measure, such as the standard deviation associated with the final outcome [5]. Nevertheless, the
variability of an athlete must be understood and perceived during the execution of the task, i.e., within
the process variables (e.g., angular positioning of joints, acceleration or muscles contraction). Process
variables are key elements that may help coaches in identifying the appropriate constraints associated to
a given athlete and increase the athlete performance. Bearing this idea in mind, next section overviews
the current state-of-the-art, discussing how variability has been used and understood in sport sciences as
a measure of the human performance.

3
1.1. Related Work
Many researchers interpret variability in sport sciences as a mechanism to force athletes into adapting
and stabilizing their actions to constraints (e.g., individual, task and environment) [8]. The variability
then contributes to an adaptive human motor control and may be adjusted to produce a desirable
outcome. For instance, in most sport modalities, it is noticeable that athletes morphologic (e.g., weight
and height) and functional (e.g., motivation and fatigue) characteristics may affect their performance.
These characteristics are intrinsic to the inter-individual profiles that distinguish athletes during the
process of motor execution [9].
Human movement variability can be defined as the typical variations that are inherent to the motor
performance and which may be observed across multiple repetitions of a given task [10], [11]. So, we
may easily perceive that an athlete has to adapt to the multiple conditions of variability. Such adaptation
involves a variety of strategies generated to solve individual motor problems. As an example, the studies
of [8], [9], [19] claimed that a golfer faces several constraints, being susceptible to a high variability of
practice conditions that require systematic adaptation mechanisms. The athlete is then faced with
multiple possible ball trajectories (e.g., either linear or curvilinear), slopes (e.g., either ascending or
descending), adverse weather conditions (e.g., sun, rain, wind and snow) and different greens (e.g., short
grass, high grass, ill-treated grass, grass with holes and sand, among others). Despite these claims,
information concerning a specific way that an athlete is able to adapt his, or her, process to a given
context and how variability conditions affect that is scarce. Henceforth, one may consider it as decisive
to understand how variability can be perceived within sport movements.
The study of [9] concluded that the problem of individuality in sport movements is not confined in
ideal or standardized techniques, but withholds a variety of strategies that may be employed according
to the specificity of each athlete. In other words, nonlinear techniques, like entropy-based measures,
provide quantitative and qualitative information about a certain motor system tendency by tracking
human movement patterns [12]. Unlike cognitive theories that support traditional motor control models,
e.g., [13] and [13] considers variability to be a negative factor in learning, the nonlinear perspective
supports that embedding chaos into the process may be necessary to establish new human movement
patterns [15]. However, only some few studies, such as [9], [6] and [17], analyzed sports from a nonlinear
perspective, using tools like entropy. This recent use of nonlinear measures in sports have fostered the
evaluation of not only the magnitude of the human variability, but also its temporal structure, thus
allowing to describe complex conditions that cannot be described using only linear tools [12]. In fact,
according [12], traditional linear tools may even conceal the true structure of motor variability.
In spite of this, nonlinear techniques, like Shannons Entropy and the Approximate Entropy, are
extremely useful to further analyze the human movement within sports context. These measures aim for
the evaluation of the overall temporal variability structure, quantifying and qualifying how a set of values
in a particular distribution are organized in time or even across a range of time scales [11], [12]. These
advances shall open new research topics under the training and tactical scope, thus narrowing the gap
between sports sciences and sports coaching [16].

4
1.2. Statement of Contribution
This paper starts by presenting a brief overview on entropy-based measures, focusing on the
applicability of Shannons entropy and the approximate entropy within sports context (Section 2). This
is further exploited in Section 3, wherein these measures are considered to study the motor control
variability in three completely different modalities, namely the golf putting, the tennis serve and the
football. The variability emerging from the athletes performance is considered as a measure to compare
their performance under different practice conditions (intrapersonal analysis) and between different
athletes (interpersonal analysis). The paper ends with conclusions and final remarks (Section 4).

2. Entropy
The human movement variability can be described as motor performance variations over multiple
repetitions for the same task [5]. Despite similarities between repetitions, the multiple constraints
inherent to the environment, the task and even the athletes body, lead to inevitable differences, thus
resulting in a certain degree of variability [3]. From an evaluation perspective, the human movement
oscillations can be evaluated, as any other time-series, by benefiting from entropy-based techniques [12],
which allow to identify the variability in a spatio-temporal perspective. Despite the multiple entropybased techniques one may consider to measure sports variability, both Shannons entropy [18] and
approximate entropy (ApEn) [24] have been the ones most widely used. Hence, let us briefly describe
both methods.
2.1. Shannons entropy
The entropy measure proposed by Shannon was initially considered to quantify the expected value of
the information contained in a message, which can be measured in units such as bits [18]. However, the
applicability of Shannons entropy is wide; from the study of birds vocal repertories [19] to the heart
rate variability [20]. Within sports context, some studies have benefitted from Shannons entropy to
measure the athletes variability, mainly applying it to their trajectory [18]. In this specific situation,
Shannons entropy is applied as in any other images processing problem, by considering the relevant
information about the spatial variability of athletes. To apply Shannons entropy to a generic image, one
should consider the histogram entry of intensity value , , to first retrieve the probability mass function
as [22]:

= ,

(1)

wherein is the total number of cells (i.e., the spatial resolution of a field). Shannons entropy can then
be calculated as [18], [23]:

= 2 ,

(2)

Considering a soccer field of cells, equation (2) returns the values of entropy defining the
variability of a given athletes trajectory based on the time a he stands on a cell. High values represent a
large variability, which may as well describe a given chaotic or even completely random trajectory
spread all over the field. On the other hand, low values represent a small human movement variability,
which may as well mean that the athlete presents a rather periodic or even completely steady trajectory
(e.g., have an homogenous trajectory all over the field or being in the same position).
Shannons entropy quantifies the information expected value associated to a discrete random variable
[23]. As such, Shannons entropy can also be used as a measure of uncertainty, or unpredictability. For
instance, for a uniform discrete distribution, i.e., when all the values of the distribution have the same
probability, Shannons entropy reaches its maximum. The minimum value of Shannons entropy then
corresponds to perfect predictability, while higher values of Shannons entropy are related to a lower
degree of predictability [23]. As it considers the variability over time, the entropy can be seen as a more
general measure of uncertainty when compared to the variance or the standard deviation [23]. Another
interesting feature is that, whilst both entropy and variance reflect the degree of concentration for a
particular distribution, they are rather different: while the variance measures the concentration around
the mean, the entropy measures the diffuseness of the density irrespective of the location parameter.

2.2. Approximate Entropy

The approximate entropy (ApEn) was first introduced by Pincus as a measure for characterizing
the regularity in relatively short and potentially noisy data [24]. M o r e specifically, ApEn quantifies
the degree of irregularity or randomness within a time-series (of length N) and has already been widely
applied to (non-stationary) biological systems to dynamically monitor the systems health [25]. The
conceptual idea is rooted in the work of Grassberger and Procaccia [26] and makes use of t he
distances between sequences of successive observations. ApEn then analyses the time-series looking
for similar epochs, in which more similar and more frequent epochs lead to lower values of ApEn [25].
From a qualitative point- of- view, given N points, ApEn is approximately equal to the negative
logarithm of the conditional probability that when two sequences similar for m points remain similar
within a tolerance r at the next point [25]. Smaller ApEn values indicate a greater chance that a set of
data will be followed by similar data (regularity) [26], i.e., greater regularity. Contrariwise, larger ApEn
values points toward a lower chance of repeatable data (irregularity), i.e., more disorder, randomness and

6
system complexity. In other words, a low/high ApEn value reflects a high/low degree of regularity. It is
also noteworthy that ApEn detects changes in underlying episodic behavior not reflected in peak
occurrences or amplitudes.
The techniques for estimating the approximate entropy can be considered as a process represented by
a time-series and related statistics [24]. Let us consider that the whole data of samples (i.e., seconds)
is represented by a time-series as (1), (2), , (N), from measurements equally spread out in time
[17]. These samples form a sequence of vectors (1), (2), , ( + 1) 1 , each one defined
by the array () = [() ( + 1)

( + 1)] 1 . Parameters , , and must be

stationary for each calculation. The parameter represents the length of the time-series (i.e., number of
data points of the whole series), denotes the length of sequences to be compared and is the tolerance
for accepting matches. So, one can define [17]:

() =

()((),())
+1

(3)

for 1 + 1. Based on Takens work(11), one can defined the distance ((), ()) for
vectors () and () as:

((), ()) =

|( + 1) ( + 1)|.

=1,2,,

(4)

From the (), it is possible to define (11):

+1

() = ( + 1)1 =1

(),

(5)

and the correlation dimension as:

ln( ())
ln

(6)

for a sufficiently large . The limit in [6] exists for many chaotic attractors and this procedure is
frequently applied to experimental data. In fact, researchers seek a scaling range of values for which
ln( ())
ln

is nearly constant for large , and they infer that this ratio is the correlation dimension. In some

studies, it was concluded that this procedure establishes deterministic chaos [17].

7
Let us define the following relation:
+1

() = ( + 1)1 =1

().

(7)

One can define the approximate entropy as:

= () +1 ()

(8)

A preliminary conclusion suggests that choice of of the standard deviation of the data ranging from 0.1
to 0.2 would produce reasonable statistical validity of [17].
For that range of values, it is possible to classify a given time-series using the approximate entropy
as [20]: i) periodic (~0); ii) chaotic (0.1 until 1.4); and iii) random ( 1.5).In summary, the
presence of repetitive patterns of fluctuation in a time-series (periodic time-series) renders it more
predictable than a time-series in which such patterns are absent (chaotic or random time-series).
3. Case Studies
This section explores the applicability of the entropy measures presented in the previous section by
considering three case studies: i) the golf putting; ii) the tennis serve; and iii) the football.
3.1. Golf
To describe the golf putting variability, it has been established that nonlinear techniques, such as the
approximate entropy, should allow unraveling the structure of a mathematical representation of this
movement. Most traditional research around the putting has been trying to quantify the motor
performance of athletes through the mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation, which take
into consideration the individual characteristics of athletes and are mostly based upon statistical effects
to characterize the learning and training of this gesture (see [8, 9 and 10]). However, as a human
movement, even as simple as the golf putting, is seen as a nonlinear system capable of producing
solutions to solve motor problems, it requires special attention and in-depth research. In fact, each golfer
has different morphological and functional characteristics that may represent a determined performance
profile, typically known as signature or digital fingerprint.
The way athletes adapt to the variability that emerges from the putting execution and how they selforganize their performance toward the task constraints was then investigated. The sample consisted of
10 adult male golfers (33.8011.89 years), right-handed and experts (10.825.40 handicap), including
the European champion of pitch and putting (season 2012/2013). The athletes executed the task on a
rectangular green carpet, replicating a fast putting surface able to provide a ball speed up to 10m/s
(Figure 1a).

8
The procedure comprised on three studies. In the first study (St1), golfers had to execute the putting
at 1 (1m), 2 (2m), 3 (3m) and 4 (4m) meters away from the hole, without any additional constraint. In
the second study (St2), a slope was placed between the hole and the 2 meters distance. In that study,
golfers had to execute the putting at 2 (2m), 3 (3m) and 4 (4m) meters away from the hole. Finally, in
the third study (St3) an additional constraint was added by obliging golfers to execute the putting on the
left and right side of the carpet at 25 in relation to the hole (see Angle One (A1) and Angle Two (A2) in
Figure 1a).
a)

2m

3m

4m

b)

Figure 1.a) Top and side views of the experimental apparatus; b) captured frame with the
experimental setup prepared for the second study (St2) 2 meters (2m) away from the hole
(adapted from [8] and [9]).
The trajectory of the putter was acquired using auto tracking methodologies comprising on detection
and estimation technique as presented in our previous work [8]. To that end, a camera at 210Hz was
placed in front of golfers so as acquire the most relevant process variables, namely the horizontal
trajectory of the putter (Figure 1b). This pre-processing step would then return the trajectory of the each
putting trial. Nevertheless, in order to evaluate the putting over the whole procedure, one needs to

9
generate a single time-series that may represent the overall putting data over time in all the trials under
that same condition. In other words, after obtaining the data of each putting one wishes to evaluate as a
hole, it is necessary to concatenate the necessary data. For instance, Figure 2 depicts 30 trials of a single
golfer under a specific practice condition concatenated into a single time-series. Generally speaking, the
function from Figure 2 represents the time series characteristic of a golfers movement in a one practice
condition. In the case represented in Figure 2, one can confirm that, although the gesture is mostly
periodic, the golfer still presents some variability at the level of putting execution (the amplitude and
duration of the movement slightly diverges throughout the trials).

Horizontal trajectory of the Putting

350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
-50
-100
-150

Trial 5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

time (seconds)

Figure 2. Example of the concatenation of 30 trials from a given golfer and practice condition.
Having a time-series, one can now directly apply the approximate entropy (ApEn) (section 2.2) to
analyze the variability of golf putting over all practice conditions [9]. Table 1 depicts the approximate
entropy for the motor execution of the putting of each golfer in the three studies. Highest ApEn values
are highlighted to represent the practice conditions within each study that led to a higher human
variability.
The results indicate that the golf putting performance can be described as a nonlinear, stable and
regular system in which each golfer discovers active solutions to overcome the constraints of the task
[9], [21], [40]. Interestingly, the ApEn values found throughout the three studies show that the minimum
values are generally obtained at longer distances (4m), increasing almost linearly as the golfer gets near
the hole. This is highly unexpected as it means that golfers depict a larger variability when near the hole.
Not that unexpected was the result found for the third study, in which the maximum value of ApEn may
be observed for the Angle Two (A2), when golfers had to apply a curvilinear trajectory in order for the
ball to overcome the ramp. Note that this situation is considerably more complex than the alternatives,
including Angle One (A1), as golfers have their vision partially constrained (see Figure 1a), thus being
under a large amount of noise and variability. In terms of the athletes, Players 1 and 9 proved to be the
most consistent (presenting the lowest ApEn), whereas Players 3, 6 and 8 presented the highest levels of
entropy (Figure 3).

10

St 3

St2

St1

Table 1. Approximate entropy for motor execution of putting of each golfer in three studies.
PC

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

P6

P7

P8

P9

P10

Avg per St

1m

0.042

0.056

0.071

0.055

0.056

0.068

0.057

0.073

0.047

0.057

0.058

2m

0.042

0.056

0.068

0.053

0.052

0.071

0.048

0.065

0.044

0.051

0.055

3m

0.046

0.053

0.068

0.043

0.043

0.055

0.047

0.061

0.041

0.046

0.050

4m

0.044

0.045

0.060

0.037

0.041

0.052

0.056

0.056

0.043

0.049

0.048

2m

0.040

0.053

0.062

0.062

0.040

0.058

0.051

0.069

0.043

0.065

0.0543

3m

0.033

0.048

0.064

0.054

0.039

0.066

0.064

0.058

0.044

0.048

0.0518

4m

0.036

0.041

0.064

0.044

0.040

0.051

0.049

0.054

0.036

0.046

0.0461

A1

0.040

0.055

0.056

0.051

0.042

0.059

0.053

0.075

0.054

0.055

0.054

A2

0.050

0.066

0.054

0.061

0.065

0.083

0.070

0.076

0.053

0.056

0.063

P= Player

A= Angle

Avg= Average

St= Study

PC= Practice condition

Approximate entropy

Figure 3 complements the aforementioned table by presenting the average entropy for each golfer
over all practice conditions.

players

Figure 3: Average approximate entropy for each golfer.

Out of curiosity, when calculating the overall average ApEn, the putting performance of expert golfers
yields a value of 0.053. This is a very stable, regular and periodic value [9]. As one will observe, the
next case study does not share the same regularity.
3.2. Tennis
In this section, let us now increase the complexity of the human motor execution from a pendulum to
a ballistic-like motion. For the tennis serve case, a non-traditional analysis of motor variability may help
revealing or uncovering its complex structure, which is undetectable using conventional linear measures,
such as amplitude or standard deviation [28], [29]. In this case study, we aimed at studying the intra and

11
inter-individual variability of motor performance in the first serve using the approximate entropy, while
manipulating the lateral wind constraint by benefiting from an induced aerodynamic flow (IAF) device
which was adapted from an industrial helical fan METEC-HCT-45-4T (Figure 4). Please, refer to [30]
for a more detailed description of the setup.
The sample consisted of 12 adult male tennis players, right-handed, 25.173.93 years old. The
anthropometric characteristics of this group were as follows: height 1776.00 cm, wingspan of 1815.00
cm and body mass of 72.294.17 Kg. All athletes had been playing tennis for 16.255.56 years, from
which 13.674.29 years were at the national competition level. The indoor tennis court had the official
dimensions for the singles tennis game, with 2377 cm long and 823 cm wide.
The movement under study was the flat first serve from behind the base line of the tennis court, on
the right-hand side, and 80 cm away from the center mark. All the participants were asked to serve at a
maximum speed and aiming at the point of intersection between the center line and the service line (i.e.,
T-point). Also, they were all asked to perform 20 tennis serves, without instructional or wind
constraints, called IAF0 (a control condition). Afterwards, they were then asked to perform four sets of
20 serves under different practice conditions: (1) minimum IAF speed of 2.4 m.s-1 (called IAF1); (2)
medium IAF speed of 4.3 m.s-1 (called IAF2), 3); (3) maximum IAF speed of 5.8 m.s-1 (called IAF3)
and; (4) random IAF speed with random sequences at the three IAF speeds (called IAFr). All these then
accounts for 100 serves for each athlete.

y
x

Figure 4. Experimental set up. A - Device IAF. B - Accuracy registration device. C - Device for
recording the velocity of the serve. D - Device for analyzing the impact point in the serve. Dashed arrow
indicates a possible direction of tennis serve: adapted from [30].

12
The recording of the racket motion was obtained from two cameras operating at 210 Hz (cameras 0
and 1 from Figure 4). The cameras were synchronized using a common light-emitting diode (LED) as
a visual trigger [30]. A 3D analysis of the collected images was carried out. For a more detailed
description of the 3D analysis, please refer to [31].
Table 2. Approximate entropy for motor execution of tennis serve of each player in five practical
conditions, in three components x, y e z.
ApEn_x
ApEn_y
ApEn_z
ApEn_x
ApEn_y
ApEn_z
ApEn_x
ApEn_y
ApEn_z
ApEn_x
ApEn_y
ApEn_z
ApEn_x
ApEn_y
ApEn_z
ApEn_x
ApEn_y
ApEn_z
ApEn_x
ApEn_y
ApEn_z
ApEn_x
ApEn_y
ApEn_z
ApEn_x
ApEn_y
ApEn_z
ApEn_x
ApEn_y
ApEn_z
ApEn_x
ApEn_y
ApEn_z
ApEn_x
ApEn_y
ApEn_z

IAF0
0.0347
0.0534
0.1070
0.0171
0.0374
0.0209
0.0213
0.0222
0.0330
0.0171
0.0007
0.0209
0.0316
0.0351
0.0374
0.0559
0.0278
0.0230
0.0289
0.0298
0.0228
0.0171
0.0366
0.0308
0.0354
0.0195
0.0218
0.0272
0.0279
0.0300
0.0168
0.0409
0.0225
0.0329
0.0245
0.0263

IAF1
0.0309
0.0506
0.0926
0.0188
0.0375
0.0196
0.0259
0.0235
0.0321
0.0125
0.0411
0.0374
0.0348
0.0330
0.0397
0.0265
0.0410
0.0354
0.0311
0.0245
0.0222
0.0267
0.0312
0.0318
0.0386
0.0230
0.0255
0.0331
0.0299
0.0251
0.0315
0.0523
0.0287
0.0402
0.0236
0.0255

Practical Conditions
IAF2
0.0307
0.0562
0.0892
0.0272
0.0414
0.0202
0.0279
0.0250
0.0341
0.0326
0.0347
0.0223
0.0344
0.0374
0.0432
0.0261
0.0425
0.0233
0.0322
0.0236
0.0219
0.0436
0.0467
0.0290
0.0345
0.0218
0.0223
0.0329
0.0310
0.0293
0.0271
0.0520
0.0309
0.0372
0.0240
0.0265

Avg per St

0.0303

0.0307

0.0322

0.0307

0.0302

Avg per St

0.0292

0.0343

0.0343

0.0314

0.0337

Avg per St

0.0335

0.0346

0.0344

0.0271

0.0322

Participants

10

11

12
Total
ApEn_x
Total
ApEn_y
Total
ApEn_z

IAF3
0.0307
0.0045
0.0040
0.0315
0.0413
0.0204
0.0252
0.0248
0.0305
0.0350
0.0410
0.0310
0.0331
0.0383
0.0412
0.0276
0.0355
0.0377
0.0278
0.0280
0.0214
0.0290
0.0334
0.0346
0.0386
0.0242
0.0249
0.0334
0.0334
0.0241
0.0293
0.0477
0.0351
0.0454
0.0231
0.0243

IAFr
0.0324
0.0525
0.0954
0.0363
0.0386
0.0197
0.0238
0.0227
0.0287
0.0347
0.0320
0.0212
0.0392
0.0447
0.0353
0.0310
0.0223
0.0282
0.0301
0.0259
0.0215
0.0313
0.0340
0.0353
0.0356
0.0220
0.0261
0.0271
0.0336
0.0201
0.0262
0.0490
0.0335
0.0412
0.0256
0.0229

13
The approximate entropy (ApEn) was calculated based on the position of the racket during the
execution of the service, considering the three components x, y and z-axis. Table 2 depicts the
approximate entropy for the motor execution of the tennis serve of each player in the five practice
conditions. Highest ApEn values are highlighted to represent the practice conditions that led to a higher
human variability in each axis.
The ApEn_x in the lateral component (x-axis) has shown that all participants present values inferior
to 0.0560. In general, IAF2 was the condition that yielded higher variability in the x-axis. Regarding the
depth component (y-axis), ApEn_y values were similarly low (less than 0.0562). Again, IAF2, now
together with IAF1, were the conditions that yielded higher variability, this time in the y-axis. In the
vertical component, ApEn_z values were even lower, below 0.0432. Player 1 presented an overall larger
variability in most conditions but, in general, the variability in the vertical component was rather smaller
than expected. Still, IAF1 was the condition that yielded higher variability in the z-axis.
This nonlinear analysis carried out for the racquet position along the three axes resulted in an
approximate entropy close to 0 (inferior to 0.1).To some extent, this characterizes the serve like a
periodic system with high regularity and low variability, regardless on the wind conditions [15].
Although the study of Menayo [32] reached the same conclusions using different methods for players of
intermediate level under different constraints, we were expecting to observe a more chaotic behavior
from a ballistic movement. It is also noted that, even though it may be neglected in some occasions, there
has been a larger number of players with a slight tendency to increase their variability due to wind
constraints.
3.3. Soccer
As one may observe from the previous case studies, the approximate entropy can be applied to study
athletes variability in different contexts. In this section, we consider both entropy-based measures,
namely Shannons entropy and the approximate entropy to analyze the variability inherent to soccer
players trajectories.
In a first instance, let us consider the applicability of Shannons entropy. According to section 2.1, to
do so one should first divide the soccer field into cells. To do so, one can segment the field into 12
resolution. The time a given player stands in each 1 2 cell will result into a specific heat map (i.e.,
histograms) representing the overall trajectory travelled by him inside the soccer field [33], [34]. For the
sake of simplicity, the players position has been discretized at each second, in which a given cell gets
the value of 1 to identify the player presence, or 0 otherwise [35]. This spatio-temporal approach allows
to identify the spatial variability of a soccer player trajectory over the whole match. Figure 5 presents a
specific case of how the variability can be understood by considering different tactical positions.

14

Player 1

Player 8

Figure 5. a) Tactical line-up of team; b) Goalkeepers heat map (Player 1); c) Midfielders heat map
(Player 8).
As one can observe in Figure 5b,c, the soccer players trajectories vary accordingly to their tactical
position, being defined by the strategic plan and by the game dynamics [36]. It is noteworthy that Figure
5b,c is a typical representation of an image with three dimensions and, henceforth, one can apply
Shannons entropy as it would be the case of any other histogram. In this work, we considered an entire
soccer match and computed Shannons entropy for all soccer players [17]. Figure 6 depicts the results.
3

Shannon's entropy

2.5
2.372
2.205

2.47 2.449

2.192
2.083 2.151

2.338

2.333
2.024

1.5
1
0.5

0.804

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

P6

P7

P8

P9

P10

P11

players

Figure 6. Shannons entropy of all players from one of the teams during an entire soccer match.
In this case study, it was found that midfielders present a larger Shannons entropy (player 7: =
2.470; player 8: = 2.449; player 6: = 2.372). As expected, the lowest value was found for the
goalkeeper ( = 0.804). These results reveal that midfielders cover a larger area and spend less time in
a specific region of the field. This can be explained by their tactical role, mainly because they have an
active participation linking both defensive and offensive sectors [37].

15
Nevertheless, Shannons entropy considers the overall of players without making an allowance for
the sequence generating such a trajectory, i.e., the sequence of cells a given player was in. Although
Shannons entropy can be used for coaches and their staff to control the physical demands of a match
and to assess players performance over the time [38], this kind of analysis completely excludes the
temporal factor. However, it is quite important to understand how players react during the match in order
to identify possible motion patterns. This can be an invaluable information to optimize daily training
sessions by exploiting the cycles of low and high intensities emerging during the match.
To better illustrate the previous argument, let us show an example of the distance covered by a player
over time (Figure 7).
6000

distance [mm]

5000
4000
3000
2000
1000

0
125
250
375
500
625
750
875
1000
1125
1250
1375
1500
1625
1750
1875
2000
2125
2250
2375
2500
2625
2750
2875
3000
3125
3250

time [seconds]

Figure 7. Distance covered by a player during an entire soccer match.

The example depicted in Figure 7 shows that players do not cover the same distance at each second.
Hence, the variability inherent to a given players trajectory is not constant and must be managed by
himself and by the coach, in order to anticipate and avoid the human fatigue that may affect his
performance [39]. As previously stated, the variability depends from the tactical role and even from the
strategic plan defined by the coach to manage the physiological responses of players.
For this case, and following a similar approach from the one adopted for the previous case studies,
the approximate entropy was considered [17]. Figure 8 depicts the obtained results.

16
0.6

ApEn

0.5

0.515 0.504

0.531

0.511 0.51

0.562
0.543 0.547

0.546
0.512 0.507

0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

P6

P7

P8

P9

P10

P11

players

Figure 8. Approximate entropy of all players from one of the teams during an entire soccer match.
As opposed to Shannons entropy, the approximate entropy did not showed any major differences
between players variability. Yet, the largest values were found for two of the midfielders (player 7:
0.547; and player 8: 0.562) and one forward player (player 11: 0.546). These values, similarly as
observed before, are inherent to players presenting a larger mobility during the match. Once again, the
distance travelled seems to be directly related with the variability.
4. Conclusions
From the case studies considered in this paper, one can concluded that nonlinear techniques are
extremely useful to analyze the human movement within sports context. In general, entropy-based
measures can be considered as one of the main methods to study the human variability, thus making up
for the limitations inherent to linear techniques typically used to quantify the motor performance, such
as the standard deviation, the inter-quartile range, and many other classical alternatives. However, it is
noteworthy that we do not aim at underestimating the role that linear techniques have in sports sciences,
but rather propose alternative nonlinear methods that may deepen our understanding around the human
movement science.
In this paper, both Shannons entropy and approximate entropy are considered to further understand
human variability in the context of the golf putting (pendulum-like movement), tennis serve (ballisticlike movement) and football players trajectories (chaotic/random movement). The insights provided in
this work bring important practical implications to the area of sports training, since these suggest that
the athlete can stabilize his performance by exploiting different configurations of information-movement
within different levels of variability, regularity and complexity. This reveals the complexity inherent in
normal variability, indicating motor control features that are imperative for athletes and coaches to
measure and, more importantly, to understand. Moreover, the application of principles based on
nonlinear dynamics can provide a novel perspective on how training in general should be organized.
At last, it should be noted that athletes characteristics (morphological and functional), their level of
performance and the complexity inherent in motor execution play an important role in the outcome

17
provided by the entropy measures. Consequently, it is the authors belief that the solution to the problem
of individuality should not be limited to the use of ideal or standardized techniques, but yet it shall
contemplate a wide variety of nonlinear strategies that can be implemented and adapted to the specificity
of each athlete.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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