Early results of a helmetless-tackling intervention to decrease head impacts in football players
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVE: To test a helmetless-tackling behavioral intervention for reducing head impacts in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I football players. DESIGN: Randomized controlled clinical trial. SETTING: Football field. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS: Fifty collegiate football players (intervention = 25, control = 25). INTERVENTION(S): The intervention group participated in a 5-minute tackling drill without their helmets and shoulder pads twice per week in the preseason and once per week through the season. During this time, the control group performed noncontact football skills. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Frequency of head impacts was recorded by an impact sensor for each athlete-exposure (AE). Data were tested with a 2 × 3 (group and time) repeated-measures analysis of variance. Significant interactions and main effects (P < .05) were followed with t tests. RESULTS: Head impacts/AE decreased for the intervention group compared with the control group by the end of the season (9.99 ± 6.10 versus 13.84 ± 7.27, respectively). The intervention group had 30% fewer impacts/AE than the control group by season's end (9.99 ± 6.10 versus 14.32 ± 8.45, respectively). CONCLUSION: A helmetless-tackling training intervention reduced head impacts in collegiate football players within 1 season.
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The X-Patch Pro device has been used in published concussion research projects.
“it has been used in published concussion research projects (Swartz et al., 2015; Reynolds et al., 2016)”
From A Critical Review of Consumer Wearables, Mobile Applications, and Equipment for Providing Biofeedback, Monitoring Stress, and Sleep in Physically Active Populations (2018) · cites this paper as Swartz et al., 2015
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References 8 · Cited by 75
- Authors
- Swartz, E. E., Broglio, S. P., Cook, S. B., Cantu, R. C., Ferrara, M. S., Guskiewicz, K. M., & Myers, J. L.
- Affiliations
- University of New Hampshire (US)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Emerson Hospital (US)
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Athletic Training
- Published
- 2015-12-01
- Volume
- 50
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1219-1222
- ISSN
- 1062-6050 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4741245
- OpenAlex
- W2194899716
- Cited by
- 75
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 8
- FWCI
- 9.41
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Athletic Training (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Traumatic Brain Injury Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Orthopedics and Sports Medicine › Sports injuries and prevention
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine › Automotive and Human Injury Biomechanics
- Keywords
- head impact, football, collegiate athletes, behavioral interventions, impact sensors, athlete exposure, concussion prevention, tackling technique, shoulder pads
- MeSH terms
- Acceleration, Football, Craniocerebral Trauma, Head Protective Devices, Humans, Male, Physical Education and Training, Prospective Studies, Universities
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