ProTech

ProTech, a soft shell helmet technology developed by Defend Your Head (DYH), was a primary factor in reducing traumatic head impacts among the football players who were tested, according to results from a 3-year study conducted by Penn State University.

Defend Your Head is a sports safety company based in Chester Spring, Pa.

Researchers combined the ProTech soft shell technology with special helmet sensors to monitor collision impact forces and to collect valuable data from every practice and game day. Sensors in the helmets measured impacts of significant G-forces in real time, as well as rotational aspects of each impact and their location on the helmet.

In 2015, before players were fitted with ProTech, linemen averaged 38.16 hits greater than 25Gs per player per week and three hits greater than 80Gs per player per week. In 2017, after players were fitted with ProTech, data showed a reduced average of just 20.41 hits over 25Gs or approximately half of the previously averaged 25Gs per player per week and 0.83 average weekly hits over 80Gs — a 72% reduction per player, per week in higher intensity impacts to the head, according to a media release from Defend Your Head.

“Penn State has worked closely with ProTech and has scrutinized the technology over two full years of use. We can conclude from our testing scrutiny that the ProTech is a proactive solution that reduces collision force from blows to a players’s head,” says Tim Bream, recent athletic trainer at Penn State and current head of Sports Medicine at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, in the release.

“With our concern regarding the long-term effects of the accumulation of head impacts, this is great news for our players. When we realized we could reduce the amount of total head impacts and also reduce the force from those impacts, we became confident we were improving both short-term and especially the long-term health of our players.”

“ProTech is changing the conversation around football and safety,” states Defend Your Head Founder, President, and former NFL football player John Roman, in the release. “It’s our goal to make football a safer sport for players at all levels.”

[Source(s): ProTech, Business Wire]