Maybe We're Taking the Wrong Approach To Reducing Head Trauma in Football (all levels).

Something recently occurred to me and I was going to post this at FearlessFriday.com but I'm unsure which forum to put it in there.

Almost all the emphasis in football on reducing head trauma has been in two areas:

1) Better helmet designs.
2) Eliminating the kinds of hits likely to transmit large amounts of force to the head. Like helmet to helmet contact.

Now, I don't have statistics yet but a lot of anecdotal evidence seems to be adding up that we're ignoring one of the main culprits in head trauma for football players.

The field.

A huge number of traumatic brain injures seem to come from players heads hitting the ground. And unlike the hard plastic of helmets which dissipate some of the impact when they slide aside, the ground doesn't slide aside for the most part. The use of artificial turf even on high school fields is making this problem even worse. Though modern artificial surfaces have some "give" to them as they have a granulated rubber undercoat, they still are not remotely as cushioning as a deep, thick real grass surface. I know why this would be an unpopular move with schools. Cost. One of the great benefits of an artificial surface is it is a single expenditure and very little is spent on one for several years. While maintaining a real grass field, especially on with deep, thick grass is a major time suck and money pit.

Also most coaches prefer hard playing surfaces as it tends to enhance player speed.

But I honestly think that a return to deep, thick real grass playing surfaces would in fact reduce both concussions and CTE.

Sounds sensible, artificial turf has nowhere near the shock absorbing qualities of the real deal and additionally all those football fields add up to thousands of micro ecosystems lost to cheap plastic.

they should play on asphalt covered in broken glass - at least at the pro level....make them earn all those millions!
Seriously though good point - I guess a compromise is needed between speed, cushioning and cost. The first company to develop that will make a fortune.

I have actually dealt with artificial field coverings and I am pretty sure they are more cushioned than dirt. It might be a matter of adapting the gear to have less friction when in contact with artificial turf, but it can be made to have more shock absorbing power than a compacted dirt field. Maybe this depends on the type of artificial field too.

I know this because I was involved with trying to turn paintball into an indoor sport to be played in air domes in the northeast.

The turf that I saw was a an overlay of fake grass over rubber pellets which absorbed impact. There is only so much you can do before the turf itself starts to act against the muscles and bones of the feet and ankles in a bad way. This is because the plastic may give, but it also rebounds if you use the wrong material. playing on a surface that absorbs impact becomes more like playing on sand. Artificial turf fields are going to cushion impact better than dirt, and the grass covering could be made to do more. The problem becomes grass regrows where artificial turf needs to be replaced.

Floor surfacing for paintball is a huge problem for artificial environments so I did actually do a lot of studying on it. This is more for the buildup of paint making radical moves problematic. Our problem was the more paint in the area the more slippery artificial turf became. However, the artificial turf was certainly more forgiving to a fall.

Thinking about it the artificial turf might be more problematic in regards to concussions because of the reaction of the components returning more energy to the solid object hitting it. This could be offsett by a couple of things. One would be to put a sort of neprophene covering over the helmet. This is a thing foam that would absorb and dissipate some of the reverse impact force. This sort of covering could be easily swapped and replaced for wear. The other thing would be to alter the "grass" covering of the artificial turf to absorb more impact.

In the end there is not much you can do given the space and time for these impacts. Dirt does dissipate force outwards and not back upon the object, but the more cushioning you have the more like sand it gets. There is only so much you can do to cushion multiple heavy impacts. You are really talking about the brain repeatedly facing harsh blows from rapid changes in direction. The big problem is inertia plays a roll. You may protect the shell much better so it does not break, but the internal system is really where the damage occurs.

I am thinking you are reaching an area where the simple physics of the game are a problem for the body. In paintball you can take a single hit to your body or safety equipment and it is not fatal or a real problem. However, when we got into the fully automatic realm it was discovered that the physics became problematic. That many successive shots in fast repetition to the same area became more injurious to the tissues and protective materials.

In the case of football it may not be that one impact, but rather many impacts over time in close proximity to each other. There is only so much you can do before the reality that your brain bouncing around in your head because of inertia becomes an issue you cannot compensate for.

For example: I fall down and hit my head with force more than my body manages in other sports and I get a rest for a while. This allows minor damage to heal. However, in a football game this is a prolonged activity where the damage from the first impact has time to swell and then you are hitting it over and over again throughout the game. You add to that practice where you are also getting hammered and you are really not giving the brain time to heal from the bruising it got which exacerbates the overall problem. Sort of like a boxer who fights a lot you are going to get some damage.

The people in football who take the hits take them like in no other sport except for fighting sports. There may simply be no way for the head to take such inertial forces and be ok.

I'm not talking about a dirt playing surface. I'm talking about deep, thick grass.

Does't matter if you make the helmet the size of a mascot head, the brain is going to be sloshed around in the skull.
Human beings just aren't meant to be banging into each other like rams in a mating tussle.
Football is an obsolete barbaric sport.
So, this being America, we'll hang onto it for another 2 centuries.

Yes, I understand that, but the dirt playing surface does matter because it is the backdrop for the grass. Again, this all comes back around to my physics studies regarding paintball. I got a little more deeper into the shit because I am who I am. Anyway, you are talking about accelerating and decelerating an object (The skull) while protecting the integrity of the soft tissues inside. There is a little more to it on the scientific level than I think grass might be softer.

In reality man can manufacture a grass like turf with varying physical characteristics. What we have now is not what can be possible. In the end you cannot really change dirt and plants enough to accomodate the same amount of physical properties that you can manufacture a field covering.

Not for nothing, this is all really far beyond your actual discussion. I can tell you that there is a lot of what you are talking about put into the design of high end artificial turf. The impact of the athletes upon it has been taken into account and a manufactured surface is engineered to be less impactful on the bones and joints of the body in quality surfaces. The things you are talking about really become more a matter of the physics of playing the game and that the human skull and brain were not designed to take rapid extreme variations in speed and direction for long periods of time. There are only going to be minimal advances in what can be done to lessen impacts by making the turf and pads more effective.

But do keep on trying to imagine things.

Actually, something the size of a mascot head would provide a much larger area to decelerate the head and absorb physical forces. That would actually make a big difference in absorption. However, it would also highly impact maneuverability and gameplay.