Abstract

There are growing concerns about the risk of neurodegenerative diseases associated with heading in football. It is essential to understand the biomechanics of football heading to guide player protection strategies to reduce the severity of the impact. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of football speed, mass, and stiffness on the forces experienced during football heading using mathematical and human body computational model simulations. Previous research indicates that a football header can be modeled as a lumped mass mathematical model with elastic contact. Football headers were then reconstructed using a human body modeling approach. Simulations were run by independently varying the football mass, speed, and stiffness. Peak contact force experienced by the head was extracted from each simulation. The mathematical and human body computational model simulations indicate that the force experienced by the head was directly proportional to the speed of the ball and directly proportional to the square root of the ball stiffness and mass. Over the practical range of ball speed, mass, and stiffness, the force experienced by the head during football heading is mainly influenced by the speed of the ball rather than its mass or stiffness. The findings suggest that it would be more beneficial to develop player protection strategies that aim to reduce the speed at which the ball is traveling when headed by a player. Law changes reducing high ball speeds could be trialed at certain age grades or as a phased introduction to football heading.

Highlights

  • There are growing concerns about the risk of several neurodegenerative diseases associated with heading in football.[1]

  • The study identified that professional football players lived longer than the general population and were at less risk of death from ischemic heart disease and lung cancer, they were roughly 3.5 times more likely to die from neurodegenerative disease, including 5.1 times more likely to die from Alzheimer's disease and 4.3 times more likely to die

  • The coefficient a = 200.6 is based on the football speed multiplied by the square root of the football mass (v√m) which is higher than the MADYMO simulation results (a = 188.1)

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Summary

| INTRODUCTION

There are growing concerns about the risk of several neurodegenerative diseases associated with heading in football.[1]. Most footballs can be broken down into four main layers or components: bladder, fabric, foam, and skin.[7] A football experiences thousands of impacts of varying severity in a single football match and is expected to have a lifetime of several years.[7] The football must be within established ranges for circumference, weight, and internal pressure while meeting FIFA standards for shape deviation, water absorbency, rebound and internal pressure, shape, and size retention.[7] Manufacturers place considerable importance on aerodynamic stability for long shots.[7] The football may provide an opportunity to reduce the forces experienced during heading through design manipulation This is a delicate balance and it is important to not disrupt the dynamics and skills of the game and a theoretical assessment of the potential gains from this approach is missing. Football headers were reconstructed using human body model simulations to assess the predictions of the mathematical model

| METHODS
Findings
| DISCUSSION

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