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Updated: Jun 23, 2026
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Impact Mitigation in Modern Football Helmets: Advances and Limitations of Position-Specific Designs
Published on: January 13, 2026
Linear and angular head acceleration measurements in collegiate football
Steven Rowson1, Gunnar Brolinson, Mike Goforth
1Center for Injury Biomechanics, Department of Sports Medicine, Virginia Tech-Wake Forest, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
Journal of Biomechanical Engineering
|May 20, 2009
Summary
Football players
Area of Science:
- Sports Medicine
- Biomechanics
- Neurology
Background:
- Millions of concussions occur annually in sports, with football having the highest incidence.
- Understanding the biomechanics of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is crucial for prevention.
- Collegiate football offers a unique setting for collecting head impact data.
Purpose of the Study:
- To characterize mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) by collecting biomechanical data from football impacts.
- To establish a large, unbiased dataset of head acceleration in collegiate football.
- To correlate head acceleration with concussion incidence.
Main Methods:
- Instrumented helmets with accelerometers on ten Virginia Tech football players during the 2007 season.
- Recorded linear and angular head accelerations for 1712 impacts.
- Utilized a wireless sideline data collection system for immediate data retrieval.
Main Results:
- Collected data on 1712 head impacts, with many exceeding 40 g or 3000 rad/s2.
- No concussions were clinically diagnosed in the instrumented players during the study period.
- A comprehensive dataset of head acceleration was successfully compiled.
Conclusions:
- The study compiled a large, unbiased dataset of head acceleration in collegiate football.
- This data can advance the understanding of mTBI mechanics and human head acceleration tolerance.
- Findings can inform the design of improved protective equipment to prevent head injuries.
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