The method and apparatus disclosed herein determine a user cadence from the output of an inertial sensor mounted to or proximate the user's body. In general, the disclosed cadence measurement system determines the user cadence based on frequency measurements acquired from an inertial signal output by the inertial sensor. More particularly, a cadence measurement system determines a user cadence from an inertial signal generated by an inertial sensor, where the inertial signal comprises one or more frequency components. The cadence measurement system determines a peak frequency of the inertial signal, where the peak frequency corresponds to the frequency component of the inertial signal having the largest amplitude. After applying the peak frequency to one or more frequency threshold comparisons, the cadence measurement system determines the user cadence based on the peak frequency and the frequency threshold comparison(s).
