How Much Of Your Body Can Football Helmets Protect?

Football is a high contact sport that can be dangerous for those who play it. In fact, more than 450,000 football injuries occurred in 2009 alone, according to statistics provided by the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. Although many of these injuries involve head traumas, the use of helmets has helped prevent many injuries, or at the least has reduced the severity of injuries suffered while playing football.

History of Football Helmets

Helmets first started seeing use during football games in 1896, but they looked much different than modern helmets. In fact, the first helmets were made from leather, which provided more protection than no helmet at all but was still not quite enough to protect from major injuries. As football helmets became mandatory and several organizations like the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment Standards began creating higher standards for the helmet, the designs began to develop into the hard-shelled protectors that football players wear today.

Face Protection

One of the most important areas a helmet protects is the face. Your face contains some of the most important features of your body, mainly your nose, mouth and eyes. The attached shields on the front of helmets provide an open buffer between the front of the face and the turf of the field, protecting the skin and facial features from being smashed, poked or scratched by impact with the field or other players.

General Head Protection

A helmet also protects the general surface area of skin across your entire head from your chin around to the start of the neck. The hard shell of the helmet covers and protects the skin from lacerations or turf burn from hard hits against the ground, or from hits on other players' equipment during tackles.

Brain Protection

The most important part of the body that a football helmet protects is your brain. As many as 135,000 sports and recreation-related traumatic brain injuries occur each year, according to 2007 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics. The football helmet provides both an outer shell and fitted interior padding, which helps absorb the shock of impacts during game play. This helps reduce the severity of the brain traumas associated with football, and also prevents many brain injuries from occurring. New HITS technology from the Riddell company, which can be found in NFL helmets, takes brain protection a step further by including sensors that record impacts during the game. The recorded information can then be reviewed for treatment of players or for future studies for improving the safety of the game.