Safety

INJURIES AND A CASE FOR BETTER FOOTBALL SHIN PADS

You have been preparing yourself for months, making sacrifices to be in the best possible shape for the game of the year…only to get injured the week before and miss out on that make-or-break event…Injuries will always occur.

Nonetheless, experts believe that appropriate measures can reduce the frequency of injuries. Specific food diets, tailored musculatory exercices, stretching etc. can all help prevent injuries; but equipment plays a role too: appropriate shoes and shin pads also help reduce injuries.

Batoco carbon shin pads aim to reduce both the number and severity of injuries caused by contacts on the football pitch.

Football Tibia Fracture

FOOTBALL CONTACT INJURIES & SEVERITY

Depending on the study, professional players suffer 25-35 injuries per 1 000 hours of football practice. The injury percentage caused by contacts ranges between 30 and 74%, with collisions resulting in sprains, strains, contusions or even broken bones. These injuries engender time away from the pitch, which can be used to classify the injury severity level.

Contusions of the lower leg and ankles lead on average to mild injuries (4-7 days without playing). At the more severe end, fractures cause significant issues. They have been associated with an average recovery of 157 days. Elevated re-injury risks and even, once out of five, career-ending traumas are also consequences of fractures. Moreover, bones close to the skin, like the tibia and the malleolus, have less opportunities to dissipate impact energy. This increases the probability of a bone break. 

Batoco shin guards help against contusions and fractures through multiple mechanisms. First, the composites outer shell deforms plastically to absorb and diffuse energy over a larger surface. Next, the outer shell construction redirects the energy away from the bone. Finally, the foam compresses to further reduce the transmitted forces to the lower leg.

PROTECTION MECHANISM

“The more competitive the match, the greater the speed of movement and body contacts, all of which increase the chances of injury” 

— British Journal of Sports Medicine

COST OF INJURY

league COsts

During the 2020-2021 season, 3988 injuries have been recorded in the top five leagues. The cost of these injuries is estimated at 472m eur excluding treatment and rehab expenses.

The EPL – which has the highest broadcast revenues and generally higher wages – suffered the greatest injury costs in 2020-2021 with almost 156m eur. However, this number is significantly lower than the 2018-2019 total cost estimate of 252m eur.

Number of injuries per league

Cost of injury 2020-2021 (m eur)

Club costs

Clubs continue to pay wages during missed matches and therefore, player injuries – even before considering the cost of treatment – are a significant financial risk. Depending on the country social regulations and the insurance policy in place, insurances might take over the wage payment at some point.

Reports suggest different financial burden: The CEO of Shakhtar Donetsk explains that the average cost for a first team player being injured for one month is around 500k eur, the average English Premier League injury came in at 333k eur during the 2018-2019 season and Real Madrid paid over 28m eur in 2020-2021.

PERFORMANCE LOSS

Several methods try to quantify the impact of injuries on team performance and consequently, on lost price money.

  • A simple approach can look at the expected points per game with and without the injured player.
  • A more advanced method consists of correlating the % of a team’s wage bill injured during a season with the change underlying performance of a team. A 10% increase in the club’s wage bill results to more than a point lost per season.
  • Another statisistical method involves comparing the lost days due to injuries with the expected season points or championship rank. The research concludes that 271 injury days result in a lost championship position and that on average, EPL clubs loose 50m eur due to injury-related performance loss.

PLAYER CONFIDENCE Loss

In a 2017 German Bundesliga club survey, a paper regarding player risk perception reports that “47.5% of respondents believe that contact with other players is a risk factor, followed by fatigue (38.1%) and environmental factors – including equipment (25.9%)”. For first team players alone, this number increases further to 58.3%.

The injuries might also affect player confidence, with a quarter believing past injuries impact future time on the sideline.

    SOURCES
    Bone Fracture Determinants

    DEFINING FRACTURE RISK

    Researchers have written multiple studies on lower leg fractures. Although the papers do not all agree with each other, they often mention several impact characteristics that influence bone failures:

    • Impact Force

    Traditionally, the main consideration has been maximum force on impact. Logically, how higher the peak force, how lower the chances are for your bone’s good health.

     

    • Load Rate

    Load rate – the speed at which forces are applied to your body – also affects fractures. Imagine your feet gently touching the ground or stomping on the floor. The second will most certainly leave a bigger trace on your body and soft tissues. A similar mechanism is at work for bone fractures: Higher load rates increase the maximum force required to fracture your bone, but also decrease the total energy that your bone can absorb.

     

    • Morphology

    Bone strength varies from one person to the other too. If you are a young, tall male with an important body mass, your bones are probably as strong as they can be.

     

    • Collision Aspects

    Posture, impact angle and impact concentration play a key role as well. Studs deeply stuck in the grass with a stretched-out leg have less chances of
    a positive outcome than an unconstrained body part.

    LAB TESTS

    Batoco’s custom test rig enables to test shin pads with four different impactor shapes: conic, flat, hemispherical and stud shapes all hit your shin pads. These shapes cover impacts from shoe surfaces, different cleats and studs, other shin guards, goal posts etc forcing high energy absorption levels in a range of scenarios.

    The load rate and impact force are tuned by changing impact speeds and the weight of the impactor.

    The direction of impact varies by repositioning the shin guard compared to the striker. Centre and sides are hit to control for weaker points. Injury scenarios like side tackles and downward kicks can be replicated this way. 

    Your shin pads are also conditioned in hot and cold environments to simulate impacts in harsher conditions. These extreme tests bring a better understanding of your shin guards, which can consequently be adapted for specific playing circumstances.

    Force over Time

    Chart by Visualizer

    OPTIMAL FOOTBALL SHIN PADS

    Batoco spent hours developing different shin pad concepts and collected shin guards from competitors. Both in house and competing guards were then tested in the lab. Results show that:

    • Custom shaped protection reduces injury risk by spreading impact energy more evenly than standard shaped guards.
    • Shin guard materials affect the protective capabilities significantly. Carbon and fiberglass guards generally protect more than plastic. However, all carbon shin guards do not provide the same level of protection!
    • Shape and geometry of shin guards influence protection: thicker, longer, wider, heavier shin guards reduce injury risks.
    • Repeated impacts reduce the protection shin guards provide. Besides, structural damage to shin guards can already occur at low impact speeds.

    Batoco considers your preferences to develop custom shaped carbon shin guards that are lightweight, comfortable, and most importantly, protect.

    PRODUCTS