Training without helmet helps football players decrease head impacts, researcher says
DURHAM, NH - Support keeps pouring in for Sharon High School sophomore Rohan Shulka after he suffered a traumatic brain injury during a Thanksgiving Day football game. He's currently being treated at MGH.
"Those that are focused on this area, is for this reason, is to try to prevent this type of catastrophic outcome and tragic outcome," said Erik Swartz, a Vice Dean and professor at Adelphi University. Swartz has spent much of his career at UNH.
Most of Swartz's research over the past decade was how to manage acute head and neck injuries in football players. "Then I brought my research out literally onto the field to try to prevent those injuries in the first place," he said.
Helmetless Tackling Training
He calls it HUTT. Helmetless Tackling Training which focuses on teaching football players the proper tackling techniques and keeping their head out of the way. Swartz says the more players practiced without their helmets on helped reinforce keeping their head out of the way during live contact.
"And we saw in those players that were doing those drills on a regular basis that their head impacts decreased over time throughout the course of a season," he said.
Swartz says to make the game safer and decrease the amount of traumatic brain injuries, it will take a combination of rule changes, practice structure and proper tackling techniques.
Meanwhile the NFL has approved used of padded helmet accessories known as Guardian Caps, but many of the players are not using them. "Regardless of what this (helmet) is composed of, that doesn't change the biology of the brain inside the skull and the anatomy," Swartz said. "And when there is motion and deceleration the brain is still going to move around."
He also says flag football is a great option for parents to consider before entering their child into full contact football. "Get used to that but then before they're put into a situation where it's full-blown, uncontrolled game type situation, they need to undergo the right type of training," he said.
