Why is it very difficult to make a “safer” football helmet

When the players take the stadium at the beginning of the American Football Association season, many will sport on the skillful F7 Pro helmet, which some have speculated may be I indicated the football that I watched at all. This is important for sport, which has become over the past two decades known as concussions, such as the celebrations of the end area. The Schutt SPORTS, which makes F7 Pro, claims that 35 percent of active athletes in the American Football Association have already adopted the helmet.

Football is a sport with a traditional bent, especially when it comes to this piece of equipment. An example of this: a long -time user, midfielder at Pittsburgh Steps Aaron Rodgers. The Schutt Air XP Pro Q11 LTD – by the American Football Association for its failure to fail strict safety standards increasingly, was struggling to adapt to an updated version – Schutt Air XP Pro VTD II – saying it is.It looks like a spacecraft” (he It was not a fan From F7 Pro, too.)

Jason Nebour, chief innovation official at Certor Sports (the mother company of Schutt and Vicis), explains that the grandmother does not seem important in football as it is in other sport (most of the extremes) in which he worked.

“I only designed sports commodities for more than 25 years and in all other sports goods products in which I have ever participated, everyone wants the new thing,” says Newpaore. “But in the soccer helmet industry, this is a kind of vice versa. A completely new soccer helmet is usually highlighted that has not been seen before and it seems completely different, so it usually takes two or three years until it reaches its step.”

The Schutt F7 Pro is presented to the game after a banner of the American Football Association, at least in conclusion and injuries of the lower limbs. I mentioned a Reducing 17 percent In the concussion rate for the 2024 season through all practices and games. This brought the number of concussion to its lowest level ever since the league began for the first time to track the phenomenon in 2015, after that Spent Years Denial of the problem and Compensation The players hurt during their career.

The decrease in concussion – or even mainly – cannot be attributed to improvements in helmet technology. Last year, he changed the American Football Association Starting rulesA play in which many athletes are displayed. The wearing of guardian covers, which were installed on helmets, also imposed on practices for certain sites. (Do not require a handful of helmet models, including the best of the new Schutt, use a cover in the practice.) Add to that improved education and better concussion protocol and track injuries. The helmets are only one piece in the puzzle of reducing comprehensive concussion.

But it is the most obvious. A soccer helm is more than just a protective layer on the player’s head. It has become symbolized by the game itself. Old Monday night football show Animation Of two types of helmets decorated with the slogans of the two opposing teams, they collide with each other, face to face, a ball on the horizon.

“Every other sport, it is part of the gameplay. It is the bat, MITT or the ball in the baseball game. It’s the ball in the basketball. It is the stick and forced in the hockey game. It is a safety device (i.e.) the game code as is the case in American football, Noah Kohan, Professor of American Studies at Washington University that works on the history of Helmet.

What all this means is that the new Schutt designers and other models cannot set aside aesthetic considerations and only think about improving the performance of the effect. “There is an end to the size of the helmet before the players do not adopt it because you will feel like it looks like a reckless head,” says Newbauer. Or a satellite ship, to put it in the Rodgers language. The most obvious way to make the helmet more protective is to make it larger. The more helmet, the more energy that can move away from the athlete’s head and an unstable brain mind around a skull. “But if no one accepts it as a producer, he was ready to use it, it is just a place on the poster or a preliminary model at that point.”

Neuauer explains that they do not want any major changes to the external appearance of the helmet – which may have helped in the speed of adoption because the appearance and feeling may be familiar to many players – so that he left them inside the interior to improve the performance of the effect. There is an air lock feature, which allows players to allocate a better helmet on their heads simply by pressing a button in the back to pump the air. To achieve this end, they created the heart of the DNA, which is a three -dimensional poetic structure printed inside the cortex designed around the benign tumors that were manufactured first to resist and then bind them. “The concept is to slow down the effect a little before it actually begins to pressure the plate,” says Newbauer, describing the process of relieving internal materials everywhere when the effect. “The goal of this small network is to crush, bend and absorb the effect to the maximum.”

Other helmet brands also use 3D printing and customization in its design. Riddell Axiom3D, which is also at the top of the American Football Association classification list, is in the name. While 3D printing was used in other helmets by-including the VICIS sister brand, which merged 3D platforms in 2020-these are the first certificates that were printed three-dimensional complete Neuuer says, the structure of influence for the helmet. Pro dominant in space.

This is how things were heading at least in 2011, when the Virginia Tech Testing laboratory began to issue a summary of tests and risk assessment (Star). “At that time, we have identified one of the five -star helmets,” says Steve Roson, the current director of the laboratory. “We have identified a handful of four stars, but in particular, one of the most popular helmets was ranked only at the time as one star. There are great effects on the differences in the danger between these two categories.”

“This had a major impact on the industry,” Rosson says of her classifications.

The helmet industry needed supervision of censorship because it, which left their own devices, made some doubtful claims about the effectiveness of their products. in No toys to play boys: the history of football for youth and the origins of the public health crisis“In 1954, Rolling has confirmed that her helmets could dissipate” more than 75 % of sudden and sudden influence, “she said, providing” the safest and more protective head ever for football. “

Things have certainly improved since the fifties of the last century, but more than that since Virginia Tech, then the American Football Association, began to test helmets accurately. Rowson is encouraged by the improvements he seen in the design and manufacture of helmets. “The helmet manufacturers must truly applaud the progress they have made over the past fifteen years,” he says. If you click the Virginia Tech’s Virginia Tech’s VIRGINIA TECH classification evidence, Reddell models are not the SCHUTT at the top of the pile. (Rosson said they have not yet tested these models, but they plan for them in the near future.) But all the best 11 in five stars were evaluated.

But the question that remains is: How safe can they get?

“I think what is on the table, at this point, is how can they more advanced materials that revolve inside the helmets?” Rosson’s notes. “With more advanced materials appearing, the helmet’s performance may be able to reach the front.”

but Judicial alert On the Schutt website that “no helmet can prevent head, brain, or neck injuries, including paralysis or death, the player may receive during football” more than just a type of standard statement that should be drawn out of lawsuits, which helmet manufacturers found a goal in the first days of equipment. It is a recognition of the truth. The helmet, on its own, cannot prevent these dangerous results.

“The helmet is the last line of defense,” says Rosson about the sport of communication that can only manage the risks.