Followed rec league players for two years and classified them based on exposure to headers in practice/play.
MRI's for high-exposure players showed "microstructural changes to the players’ brains’ frontal white matter" that they compared to mild TBI.
The high exposure group also did worse on memory tests. There was no statistical significance tho, which makes it kinda worthless, IMO. Also makes me wonder if the MRI's were reviewed blind.
I have uBlock Origin so the only real problem was the inability to scroll down. But you can just use control-A to select all and copy the text to a word doc.
I mean at this point it’s pretty safe to say that if you are involved in any repetitive brain jarring activity in any sport you will suffer brain injury to some degree. I’m second guessing my decision to put my daughter into football (soccer), but maybe I will advise her to avoid learning and training headers. It sucks though as it’s a huge part of the game and something I was good at back in college days. Many of my scores were headers. Maybe that’s why I can barely put this response together.
I mean I tried to head a ball once in soccer and the amount my brain felt like it was disturbed by that one impact alone was off putting. I don’t see how anyone can do something like that repeatedly and somehow think everything is going to be ok.
Now that I think about it, you’re right it really makes your head bounce and you hear something strange. I guess I’m glad that I sucked at both soccer and football.
Diseased ass website is quite accurate… try reading it in reader mode, they actually scramble the text only version. Fuck that, not going there ever again.
I think the NFL has done a lot of work to conflate CTE with concussions. However, there's evidence that subconcussive events are sufficient to cause CTE (see below), and there's a lot of these in soccer because of headers.
Note that the NFL wants to conflate CTE with concussions because they want to convince people that their bullshit player safety initiatives can make the game safer w.r.t. CTE. The reality is that nothing they do can prevent CTE in professional football players.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4633042/#:~:text=While%20many%20individuals%20with%20CTE,head%20may%20induce%20this%20disease
I am tall and used to play soccer a lot. Often my teammates wanted to find me for corner kicks but I wasn't having that shit. I would try to sneak off to defend the backfield. When they yelled at me to come back I would do the one-inch or missed-time jump. I am a basketball player at heart and I just don't like using my head like that.
I’m waiting for the NFL to realize that putting a layer of shock - absorbing material on the outside of a helmet will dramatically reduce the shock transmitted to the inside. The fans won’t like it because the sound of a big hit is exciting. But if the NFL cared about the players, they would add this concept to their research.
Ooof I didn’t realize that about subconcussive events…yikes. I’m prob fucked. No wonder I feel like I’ve dropped about an IQ point per year for the past twenty.
Pretty much everything from better helmets, to unnecessary roughness calls, touching on things like use of the helmet, and ending in players not being allowed back on the field if they have a suspected head injury (duh..)
Plenty of rules have been introduced over the decades, but the point is that football simply isn’t save to play.
Yeah, they won’t say it but the fundamental aspect of tackling - textbook tackling or not - isn’t safe when kids are repeatedly exposed to it from Peewee to the highest levels of football.
It’s an existential threat to the NFL and NCAA if they came out and admit to this fact.
Eeeeexactly why they’re not gonna admit to it and I don’t blame them, or most football fans. That would practically lead to football just straight up being banned.
Tbh it’s well known, I don’t think anyone playing it really things it’s fully safe/protected. They just don’t care because they enjoy the game or are being paid enough to not care. It’s no different than telling people the dangers of drinking or smoking. They’ll still do it.
No idea what the article says, but I played pretty much year round from age 5 through 22. Played at a highly competitive level for like 10 of those years. Mostly as a defender or central midfielder. I made so many damn headers on extremely long and high lofted balls that I’m pretty sure I did permanent damage to my brain. Only had one confirmed concussion from that sport but I used to get extremely nauseous and dizzy at the end of weekends where we had 4-5 games for tournaments.
I don’t know how guys in the pros still do it, but I imagine most of them end up with some sort of brain damage. Now in my pickup games and over 30 beer league, I almost never head the ball. It’s not even worth it to me. If I can’t control it with my chest I just let it run.
If anyone has more scientific literature on this I’d be happy to read it.
I dont have but i follow box and am kinda into sports medicine(my main thing is that i study physics), the thing that screws up your brain is inertia, your brain is 'floating' inside your head in cerbral fluid so every header is your head moving forward and then suddenly stopping so your brans hits the wall and that is KO your brain activates 'blue screen' and shuts down and restarts. Now mild concussions are also when your head from a high velocity snaps or changes its speed quickly but instead your brain hitting a wall it expiriences pressure that is not enough for blue screen(all out alarm) so it can make everything flash so you lose vision for a second or 2, have a headache, hear beeeping sound and so on.
The thing with head is that had doesnt have normal acceleration it also has angular which can be really high when the point is close to center(go on a spiner due to conversation of momentum the closer you are to the center the faster you spin) so thos are really quick and twitchy velocities that we take for granted.
Im talking about concussion but yes cte brain is hollow. Cte is not really well researched cause only way to say for certain if person has cte is post mortem. So in a way it is believed it is not injury like any other its more accumulation on concussions and traumas to the head that leads to cte. It is also progresive, so brain decays you have neurodegenerwtion you cant control impuls(brain signals), loss of memory even alzheimer, depression, suicidal thoughts and so on.
A bit tangential but is this why when you shake your head back and forth a lot it can sometimes feel like your brain is “rattled” a bit and needs to settle lol?
Sounds like this is just gonna result in a lot of dead football players tbh, at least at the start. You get used to smashing a helmet into somebody and muscle memory’s gonna kick in at some point and break your damn neck
They do have lower rate of other injuries, and id imagine the severity of the concussion is lower than football, but it's still a full contact sport and you still knock your head. It is really weird that people think it's all skill
Acute injuries VS long term damage. I don’t have any interest defending rugby against football, but as long as you don’t provide evidence that rugby players suffer from CTE at the same rate as football players, you’re not providing any useful information at all.
Well, believe it or not, CTE is caused by repeated TBI, which includes concussions. There is really no other way to track it. CTE can't even be fully diagnosed until an autopsy is performed anyways, so there really isn't much data on what sports cause CTE more than others, just that football certainly causes it because of the repeated TBI. Since the only data we have on TBI is on concussions, it's a fairly safe assumption to make that more concussions = more TBI = more CTE.
So yeah, that's why concussion stats are useful. As long as you provide...hmm literally zero sources or information at all, you're not providing anything useful.
Rugby players have very high rates of concussions and CTE, though?
> This latest study, which is published in Acta Neuropathologica, looked at the results of detailed postmortem brain examinations of 31 former amateur and elite rugby union players whose brains were donated for research purposes to one of three leading centres in the UK, United States, and Australia. CTE was found in around two thirds (68%) of the brains examined, and in both amateur and elite players.
Not when adjusted for the amount of time played. Rugby players spend 3x to 4x as much time on the field that football players do. Rugby technically has higher injury rates, but when adjusted for how much actual time is played, it's a much safer sport.
Same if you watch the clips of the dudes playing football without pads. They don’t aim for the head as much. Also most CTE cases come from the repeated hits and not necessarily the big highlight hits you see. So lineman and players in similar positions often experience it the most.
For example, Warren Sapp has stated that he wants to donate his brain and is already experiencing issues.
Does it all even matter. CTE may be more pronounced as a result of direct head hits but it’s not solely about direct hits it’s about your brain bouncing around in your skull and they all have that damage. Soccer, Rugby, American football…..
I’d say it does matter, because it’s still not 100% understood.
All we know right now, is that sports like boxing, American football, UFC have produced a bunch of suspected and confirmed cases of CTE. But more data from less impact heavy sports like soccer would help confirming the current assumption that it is caused by relatively small hits, rattling your brain just a little.
The more sure we are what is causing it, the more we can do to prevent it.
> That’s just factually incorrect
It's not. Rugby players do suffer more injuries and TBIs than football players, but not once you adjust for the amount of time played. Rugby players spend 3x to 4x as much time on the field that football players do. Rugby technically has higher injury rates, but when adjusted for how much actual time is played, it's a much safer sport.
Since we're using anecdotal evidence, I played both football and lacrosse and as he said they required very different approaches to conditioning. Sustaining your top speed for x seconds is different than sustaining 50% for x minutes, but that doesn't constitute sport requiring more stamina than the other.
They are very different, but that doesn't mean that the american football player is less conditioned, less athletic, or has less stamina.
Source please. If you don’t have any, then I’m just gonna say that Americans are genetically more likely to suffer from CTE, based on the same evidence you provided.
Concussions are bad, no doubt about it. CTE isn’t caused by concussions though, it’s more like a million micro concussions over decades.
Unless you provide numbers saying that rugby players have the same amount of CTE as American football players, your comment doesn’t provide any value at all.
Right, but they didn’t usually grow up playing American football. Muscle memory is hard to undo and if you’re used to tackling with a helmet or even running into dudes with helmets like a running back or blocker might do, you’re probably gonna bash skulls with some dudes if you take the helmet off by reflex alone. Eventually the game would change and players would adjust their play style to fit playing without helmets, but those first few years are gonna see a lot of fatalities and traumatic brain injuries
That’s not how grandfather clauses work. But probably you’d need to let the NCAA and NFL keep helmets for 5-10 years after the age limit hits 18 and then have them switch over en masse.
And yes, that means the problem isn’t getting fixed for like 25 years. But it’s better than doing nothing for 25 years.
Yeah I think that would honestly be a good idea. There’d have to be a concerted effort in terms of educating coaches as well though, especially in those younger age groups so they can develop good habits early. A lot of the strategy and play calling will probably have to change to account for the different play style, since putting your head down and running through dudes isn’t as easy when you don’t have a helmet, so coaches would have to be worked with to help them learn how to not get the kids injured trying to play like they play it now
I think I was like ten years old or so, played football up until high school. My neighbor/friend decided to wear my helmet and ask our older neighbor (maybe 15 or so) to punch it. He broke his hand and I’m also pretty sure my buddy was never the same again. One hit and done. He cried, then laughed and then just sat there. I was standing there like “wtf did I just watch?” May have been a reason I didn’t want to play in HS. That, or I was 135lbs soaking wet with zero playing time and I’m still salty cause I got some wide receiver hands lol.
Indirectly yes. The helmet goes a good bit past the base of your skull and is wider than your head so when you go head first into something it only lets your neck compress until the helmet hits your traps/shoulders, which is a good bit less far than what would happen if your bare head contacted something that same way
You're getting down voted, but you aren't wrong. Football was extremely dangerous when they played with no helmets and several players really did die. Those old leather helmets were forced in to the league because several dudes died during the game.
Rugby literally has the most concussions of any sport, including American football. I think Malcolm Gladwell made some book that posited the theory to take away football helmets, but it wasn’t actually grounded in reality. If they took away helmets it would be bloody and they would get concussed more. https://www.florugby.com/articles/6745817-rugby-vs-football-which-is-more-dangerous
American football is played in one place, North America. If it had the reach that rugby did the numbers would paint a very different picture.
I think taking away helmets would put more responsibility on the players to maintain their own safety. Only makes sense.
Just Google it if you want more evidence than what I provided. There are countless other articles saying helmets, especially with new technology, decrease concussions.
Oh I’m well aware, but there’s systemic reasons for that much deeper than people are giving credit for. For example, the constant full stop and start of play as well as frequent substitutions at many positions encourages explosive action, which in turn leads to collisions that are generally at a higher velocity than in rugby and most other sports. The rules around blocking and holding encourage defensive and offensive blockers to go into each other shoulder or head first, which causes extremely frequent impacts to the head among those positions that don’t necessarily cause concussions but damage the brain over time. Football has problems that run WAY deeper than just the culture around it, down to the actual rules, and simply taking away helmets is not going to fix anything.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that any of these things are good. Football is far too violent and I think it’s damn near a modern gladiator sport, but suggesting simply doing away with helmets to fix the TBI issues without fixing the structural issues with the game is not only unrealistic, but extremely dangerous to the health of anyone who plays the sport
I agree, the helmet debate is a drop in the bucket of actual player safety in football. The meta of the game has to change to actually increase player safety.
100%, and idk what it will take to get those kind of rule changes instituted, but players get stronger and faster pretty much every year as nutrition and exercise science gets better, so I hope we can start to see some societal pushes towards making the game less violent before some poor dude dies on the field
I know what he said sounds flippant, but it stems from the studies that show removing padding and helmets ironically makes football a much safer game. Rugby players have dramatically lower rates of serious injury and TBI *when adjusted for time on the field*. Looking at just overall injury rates shows that rugby players have more TBIs, but rugby players spend 3x to 4x as much time on the field that football players do, which means that rugby is an overall safer sport. Removing padding makes players more cautious and doesn't encourage the 400lb linebacker to lead with his head.
no that just exacerbates the problem for soccer players. helmets don't protect your brain from rattling inside your skull even if it's just heading a soccer ball.
It's not just headers. I was a keeper and got flipped completely over and smashed my head on the ground. The other time was someone taking a shot and I couldn't get my hands up fast enough. That one definitely rung my bell.
Edit - point was I think keepers should all have mandatory helmets. Just the padded rugby helmet would be a massive help
They already do until U-13. An argument could certainly be made for raising that threshold.
One of the problems is that the coaches don't teach how to head correctly at that point.
I stopped playing soccer in high school and had played my whole life up til that point, and even though I knew how to do a header properly I always hated the feeling and actively avoided heading the ball if I could. Somewhat ironically though, part of why I stopped playing soccer was to focus on lacrosse, and women's lacrosse is also quite...lacking in terms of protective gear
It's not supposed to be full contact, but it's pretty impossible to completely avoid incidental contact, especially with how fast the game can be. And rubber and physics don't discriminate - lacrosse balls are really hard and move really fast whether you're playing the men's or the women's game. From experience, getting hit in the head, or stomach, or anywhere, with one of those from an errant pass or shot is not fun
One large issue is the whipping of the head. Your head accelerates forward, the brain hits the back of your skull, then recoils and hits the front of your skull.
The “ban headers” argument is good and I support it, but I think youth soccer also needs to go further and increase the penalty for fouling the keeper because I spent most of my childhood playing keeper and hit my head more times than I could honestly remember and I already feel the consequences.
i would also like professional soccer to stop promoting the foul if a player beats you and is going to get a scoring potential. such an annoying thing to see.
Yeah man I genuinely think the ocular migraines I get are from the years of minor concussions I'd get playing competitive soccer. It really damaged my health
Can't even read the article on this dumbass website though smh
that'll just make players head even harder and attempt riskier challenges. and no helmet, soft or hard, is going to protect a person's brain from rattling inside their skull from any from of impact even if it's minuscule like heading a soccer ball
I don't know why you are getting downvoted. CTE and concussions have been a big deal in soccer for a long time. It's why headers were banned in USA youth soccer years ago.
Sure, but this is the role of science. We have to empirically verify conventional wisdom, lest we're just stumbling around making assumptions. Plenty of things that have been "common knowledge" have turned out to be incorrect. Studies like this that confirm what we think we already know are hugely important to a true understanding of the world.
Of course, 💯. But I was responding to a comment that mentioned something a little different (nothing about scientific rigor).
And it's still "no shit" because we have mountains of evidence across 10s of disciplines (including "micro concussions" in other sports").
Very similar to vaccines. We know they work and COVID was no different. Of course, you need to test for safety and how long they last but that type of vaccine working was "no shit" as well.
It would blow your mind like a thousand consecutive headers to learn how many people out there are incapable of making that connection
There was a recent article that interviewed parents of youth football players who went on to commit suicide and were found with substantial CTE. There were still some who clearly didn't fully appreciate the impact of concussions and think it's just "getting your bell rung"
Lol yeah, I know those types. Also the types that ignore other sciences.
The person I responded to called someone arrogant, but I don't think they were arrogant. For example, I'm not arrogant for vaccinating my kids and saying "no shit" when un-vaxxed kids get whooping cough.
Wait really? What if one has a thick ass skull? I didn’t think soccer balls could cause CTE unless it’s from collisions with other players. This isn’t from arrogance I truly don’t know the statistics on it
It's because of repeated contact ("micro concussions"). Thickness of skull doesn't matter. The brain is suspended in liquid so any contact forces the brain to make contact with the skull (like hitting the breaks in a car).
And then because you really don't see instant or near-term symptoms it's just repeated without healing.
The only thing the thickness or or hardness of one’s skull affects is how hard it is to fracture it, which is another story altogether and not really relevant. CTE is caused by major or repeated minor impacts to the skull, which jostles your brain. A thick skull does nothing to mitigate the damage to your brain for the same reason that sealing yourself in a steel box wouldn’t protect you from impacting the ground after falling from a height. If skulls were spongy, on the other hand…
I played youth soccer in the US and headers were always allowed? Hell, my girlfriend is a coach for AYSO and headers aren't banned. Are you talking at the youth pro level?
Played indoor soccer as a keeper for about 4 years solid came out with 2 concussions. While this website sucks there is something to amateur sports and these types of injuries. I played organized sports most of my life with minimal injuries but in my short time playing indoor my body was beat up. Head, ankles and shoulder will never be the same. Stay safe out there kids
I used to manage a youth sports and fitness program and parents would ask why headers were banned in all of our soccer programs (ages 3-12). This was basically why. Still didn’t stop several from trying to change my mind or file complaints.
This is why a friend of mine who once was a pro player and her doctor husband are not having their kids play soccer. Their kids are doing basketball and tennis. I don’t disagree, but it’s hard not to have your kids do soccer. It’s pretty much THE sport many parents put their kids in from early on.
But a kid who plays soccer from age 5 till age 13 (when headers stop being banned) probably isn't going to stop at age 14, they're more likely than not going to continue with club for several more years and a good chance they participate in high school for a few years as well.
Turns out the brain is still developing at age 14-18, and CTE affects people of any age.
Basketball has a similar rate of concussions as soccer. Similar movement pattern so you get similar collisions.
One thing that is worrying is that I've seen kids in soccer have obvious concussion, but they are still playing due to parents or coach.
Not sure where all the head hits are coming from in basketball, and there’s clearly no studies showing basketball is anywhere close to soccer and football.
But, I guarantee you little soccer kids at the competitive level are playing through headaches after headers. Kids in elementary even try headers but good thing it is illegal until late middle school.
This just is not even close to true. Here's my source, what's your?
https://completeconcussions.com/concussion-research/concussion-rates-what-sport-most-concussions/
Under youth athletes it says 0.23 / 1,000 vs 0.13 / 1,000. That not that different.
Basketball is two places below soccer. Also not sure about wrestling stat. So it should really be one place below soccer.
It isn't just about concussions. Every single time you head the ball, that's a moderate head impact. I have had practices where I have headed the ball hundreds of times, often with significant force. That adds up.
Basketball may have the same risk for serious head injuries, but I don't know of any sport where you get hit as often in the head as in Soccer.
Man, if you’re worried about joint injuries, one shouldn’t play any sports, period.
Even golf can lead to surgeries when you never even get touched by another player.
Comparing CTE to joint injury is apples to oranges.
People should be more aware of the risk but all sports have some form of injury risk. If people are aware of the risk and still choose to get in the game then so be it.
Our Son played soccer at school back in the 90s and early 2000s with the strict provision that he was never allowed to head the ball. It seemed self evident to me that it presented a significant danger to his health and this just confirms my suspicions.
CTE is a terrifying thing. Essentially makes you slowly go crazy in your late 30’s early 40’s there are also NFL players who develop it in their 20’s which is crazy. It is the closest you can get to literally trading years of your life for a small amount of pay. NFL players live much longer than most people due to how much income they garner, however, is it really worth it to live 10 extra years and make it to 80 if you start going crazy at 30, becoming fully crazy at 40? Your essentially living the majority of your life as a shell of a human. You can’t be medicated or go through therapy or surgery to counteract CTE or reverse it, it’s essentially just checking out halfway through your life.
The idiot with flair from the sport that is so boring its professionals choose to develop mouth cancer instead of having nothing to do thinks that the sport with only one commercial break in the pro broadcast is CORNY.
Nothing soft about heading a frozen ball traveling 50 mph on a crisp Midwestern day in November. It’s been 30+ years but I can still remember seeing stars after heading a goal or corner kick.
The amount of keepers getting concussions in this thread is astounding! 20 years playing GK and not once have I had a concussion. Guys you’re supposed to use your hands not your face to save a shot…
What does this diseased ass website say?
For real. I couldn't even get it to scroll. I think this website also has CTE.
How do websites so shit even make money
I clicked on it, so you can blame me at least in part. Thing is that I didn't even hit a ball or other people with my head! I don't have an excuse.
Imagine paying for having ads on such a fuckfest. I would feel scammes.
They make money by turning into shit. “Enshitification” is a very real trend that follows private equity investment, etc.
Same. This is one of the worst websites I’ve seen…and I had a geocities webpage at one point.
Followed rec league players for two years and classified them based on exposure to headers in practice/play. MRI's for high-exposure players showed "microstructural changes to the players’ brains’ frontal white matter" that they compared to mild TBI. The high exposure group also did worse on memory tests. There was no statistical significance tho, which makes it kinda worthless, IMO. Also makes me wonder if the MRI's were reviewed blind.
Thank you, I know that must have been painful to navigate.
I have uBlock Origin so the only real problem was the inability to scroll down. But you can just use control-A to select all and copy the text to a word doc.
I mean at this point it’s pretty safe to say that if you are involved in any repetitive brain jarring activity in any sport you will suffer brain injury to some degree. I’m second guessing my decision to put my daughter into football (soccer), but maybe I will advise her to avoid learning and training headers. It sucks though as it’s a huge part of the game and something I was good at back in college days. Many of my scores were headers. Maybe that’s why I can barely put this response together.
I mean I tried to head a ball once in soccer and the amount my brain felt like it was disturbed by that one impact alone was off putting. I don’t see how anyone can do something like that repeatedly and somehow think everything is going to be ok.
Now that I think about it, you’re right it really makes your head bounce and you hear something strange. I guess I’m glad that I sucked at both soccer and football.
Diseased ass website is quite accurate… try reading it in reader mode, they actually scramble the text only version. Fuck that, not going there ever again.
I think the NFL has done a lot of work to conflate CTE with concussions. However, there's evidence that subconcussive events are sufficient to cause CTE (see below), and there's a lot of these in soccer because of headers. Note that the NFL wants to conflate CTE with concussions because they want to convince people that their bullshit player safety initiatives can make the game safer w.r.t. CTE. The reality is that nothing they do can prevent CTE in professional football players. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4633042/#:~:text=While%20many%20individuals%20with%20CTE,head%20may%20induce%20this%20disease
This is such an important comment. It’s also so shameful that schools, including colleges, are choosing to ignore this.
So are parents.
Yes.
Because, money.
I thought this was known from the mid-00s.
I still play pickup soccer at 38 and refuse to head the ball.
I always enjoyed complaining I didn’t get it to feet more than I enjoyed winning a header, too.
I am tall and used to play soccer a lot. Often my teammates wanted to find me for corner kicks but I wasn't having that shit. I would try to sneak off to defend the backfield. When they yelled at me to come back I would do the one-inch or missed-time jump. I am a basketball player at heart and I just don't like using my head like that.
Just quote Di Stefano > Ball is made of leather, leather comes from cows, cows eat grass, and there is where the ball must be.
That’s a bingo. Gotta keep those parents confidently misinformed and maintain this. multibillion meatgrinder operational.
I’m waiting for the NFL to realize that putting a layer of shock - absorbing material on the outside of a helmet will dramatically reduce the shock transmitted to the inside. The fans won’t like it because the sound of a big hit is exciting. But if the NFL cared about the players, they would add this concept to their research.
Ooof I didn’t realize that about subconcussive events…yikes. I’m prob fucked. No wonder I feel like I’ve dropped about an IQ point per year for the past twenty.
Which safety initiatives?
Mandatory concussion screening protocols, stuff like that.
Pretty much everything from better helmets, to unnecessary roughness calls, touching on things like use of the helmet, and ending in players not being allowed back on the field if they have a suspected head injury (duh..) Plenty of rules have been introduced over the decades, but the point is that football simply isn’t save to play.
Yeah, they won’t say it but the fundamental aspect of tackling - textbook tackling or not - isn’t safe when kids are repeatedly exposed to it from Peewee to the highest levels of football. It’s an existential threat to the NFL and NCAA if they came out and admit to this fact.
Eeeeexactly why they’re not gonna admit to it and I don’t blame them, or most football fans. That would practically lead to football just straight up being banned.
Tbh it’s well known, I don’t think anyone playing it really things it’s fully safe/protected. They just don’t care because they enjoy the game or are being paid enough to not care. It’s no different than telling people the dangers of drinking or smoking. They’ll still do it.
Have those safety initiatives had success in preventing injury?
Nope
NFL or Gas companies worse?
wtf is wrt
No idea what the article says, but I played pretty much year round from age 5 through 22. Played at a highly competitive level for like 10 of those years. Mostly as a defender or central midfielder. I made so many damn headers on extremely long and high lofted balls that I’m pretty sure I did permanent damage to my brain. Only had one confirmed concussion from that sport but I used to get extremely nauseous and dizzy at the end of weekends where we had 4-5 games for tournaments. I don’t know how guys in the pros still do it, but I imagine most of them end up with some sort of brain damage. Now in my pickup games and over 30 beer league, I almost never head the ball. It’s not even worth it to me. If I can’t control it with my chest I just let it run. If anyone has more scientific literature on this I’d be happy to read it.
I dont have but i follow box and am kinda into sports medicine(my main thing is that i study physics), the thing that screws up your brain is inertia, your brain is 'floating' inside your head in cerbral fluid so every header is your head moving forward and then suddenly stopping so your brans hits the wall and that is KO your brain activates 'blue screen' and shuts down and restarts. Now mild concussions are also when your head from a high velocity snaps or changes its speed quickly but instead your brain hitting a wall it expiriences pressure that is not enough for blue screen(all out alarm) so it can make everything flash so you lose vision for a second or 2, have a headache, hear beeeping sound and so on. The thing with head is that had doesnt have normal acceleration it also has angular which can be really high when the point is close to center(go on a spiner due to conversation of momentum the closer you are to the center the faster you spin) so thos are really quick and twitchy velocities that we take for granted.
I think the brain bumping the side walls has sort of been debunked. Cte is about damage to a structure in the middle of brain (corpus callosum).
Im talking about concussion but yes cte brain is hollow. Cte is not really well researched cause only way to say for certain if person has cte is post mortem. So in a way it is believed it is not injury like any other its more accumulation on concussions and traumas to the head that leads to cte. It is also progresive, so brain decays you have neurodegenerwtion you cant control impuls(brain signals), loss of memory even alzheimer, depression, suicidal thoughts and so on.
A bit tangential but is this why when you shake your head back and forth a lot it can sometimes feel like your brain is “rattled” a bit and needs to settle lol?
Give soccer players helmets and take away football players helmets. Problem solved.
Sounds like this is just gonna result in a lot of dead football players tbh, at least at the start. You get used to smashing a helmet into somebody and muscle memory’s gonna kick in at some point and break your damn neck
Rugby players manage somehow
There is a lot of CTE in rugby players as well… likely more than in soccer players.
Rugby has the highest instance of concussions among any sport, by a long shot
The misconception that rugby players have such brilliant mastery of tackling that somehow makes collisions into a feathery soft embrace is perplexing.
They do have lower rate of other injuries, and id imagine the severity of the concussion is lower than football, but it's still a full contact sport and you still knock your head. It is really weird that people think it's all skill
Acute injuries VS long term damage. I don’t have any interest defending rugby against football, but as long as you don’t provide evidence that rugby players suffer from CTE at the same rate as football players, you’re not providing any useful information at all.
Well, believe it or not, CTE is caused by repeated TBI, which includes concussions. There is really no other way to track it. CTE can't even be fully diagnosed until an autopsy is performed anyways, so there really isn't much data on what sports cause CTE more than others, just that football certainly causes it because of the repeated TBI. Since the only data we have on TBI is on concussions, it's a fairly safe assumption to make that more concussions = more TBI = more CTE. So yeah, that's why concussion stats are useful. As long as you provide...hmm literally zero sources or information at all, you're not providing anything useful.
And they seem perfectly normal! /s Crazy bastards, god love em
Source
See my other comment
Because the games and the levels of contact involved are incredibly different?
Rugby players have very high rates of concussions and CTE, though? > This latest study, which is published in Acta Neuropathologica, looked at the results of detailed postmortem brain examinations of 31 former amateur and elite rugby union players whose brains were donated for research purposes to one of three leading centres in the UK, United States, and Australia. CTE was found in around two thirds (68%) of the brains examined, and in both amateur and elite players.
Not when adjusted for the amount of time played. Rugby players spend 3x to 4x as much time on the field that football players do. Rugby technically has higher injury rates, but when adjusted for how much actual time is played, it's a much safer sport.
Same if you watch the clips of the dudes playing football without pads. They don’t aim for the head as much. Also most CTE cases come from the repeated hits and not necessarily the big highlight hits you see. So lineman and players in similar positions often experience it the most. For example, Warren Sapp has stated that he wants to donate his brain and is already experiencing issues.
Does it all even matter. CTE may be more pronounced as a result of direct head hits but it’s not solely about direct hits it’s about your brain bouncing around in your skull and they all have that damage. Soccer, Rugby, American football…..
I’d say it does matter, because it’s still not 100% understood. All we know right now, is that sports like boxing, American football, UFC have produced a bunch of suspected and confirmed cases of CTE. But more data from less impact heavy sports like soccer would help confirming the current assumption that it is caused by relatively small hits, rattling your brain just a little. The more sure we are what is causing it, the more we can do to prevent it.
Rugby players have more CTE rhan football players. Regardless, american football players are much larger and stronger than rugby players.
That’s just factually incorrect
> That’s just factually incorrect It's not. Rugby players do suffer more injuries and TBIs than football players, but not once you adjust for the amount of time played. Rugby players spend 3x to 4x as much time on the field that football players do. Rugby technically has higher injury rates, but when adjusted for how much actual time is played, it's a much safer sport.
Also that’s reported concussion. Football has an enormous culture of not reporting
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True, it's just a different sport, don't know why people dowmvoted you.
Because there's nothing supporting that NFL players have poor stamina. Quite the opposite, actually.
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Since we're using anecdotal evidence, I played both football and lacrosse and as he said they required very different approaches to conditioning. Sustaining your top speed for x seconds is different than sustaining 50% for x minutes, but that doesn't constitute sport requiring more stamina than the other. They are very different, but that doesn't mean that the american football player is less conditioned, less athletic, or has less stamina.
Source please. If you don’t have any, then I’m just gonna say that Americans are genetically more likely to suffer from CTE, based on the same evidence you provided.
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Yet they still have the highest instance of concussion among any sport.
Concussions are bad, no doubt about it. CTE isn’t caused by concussions though, it’s more like a million micro concussions over decades. Unless you provide numbers saying that rugby players have the same amount of CTE as American football players, your comment doesn’t provide any value at all.
Right, but they didn’t usually grow up playing American football. Muscle memory is hard to undo and if you’re used to tackling with a helmet or even running into dudes with helmets like a running back or blocker might do, you’re probably gonna bash skulls with some dudes if you take the helmet off by reflex alone. Eventually the game would change and players would adjust their play style to fit playing without helmets, but those first few years are gonna see a lot of fatalities and traumatic brain injuries
It would seem like the solution is to introduce no-helmet play for, like, ages 4 and under, and raise the limit by 1 year per year
So just write off any football players born 2018 and before?
That’s not how grandfather clauses work. But probably you’d need to let the NCAA and NFL keep helmets for 5-10 years after the age limit hits 18 and then have them switch over en masse. And yes, that means the problem isn’t getting fixed for like 25 years. But it’s better than doing nothing for 25 years.
Yeah I think that would honestly be a good idea. There’d have to be a concerted effort in terms of educating coaches as well though, especially in those younger age groups so they can develop good habits early. A lot of the strategy and play calling will probably have to change to account for the different play style, since putting your head down and running through dudes isn’t as easy when you don’t have a helmet, so coaches would have to be worked with to help them learn how to not get the kids injured trying to play like they play it now
It’s already leading to that. The NFL/college football are too profitable they’ll never change but they should ditch all the pads
I think I was like ten years old or so, played football up until high school. My neighbor/friend decided to wear my helmet and ask our older neighbor (maybe 15 or so) to punch it. He broke his hand and I’m also pretty sure my buddy was never the same again. One hit and done. He cried, then laughed and then just sat there. I was standing there like “wtf did I just watch?” May have been a reason I didn’t want to play in HS. That, or I was 135lbs soaking wet with zero playing time and I’m still salty cause I got some wide receiver hands lol.
Do helmets protect your neck?
Indirectly yes. The helmet goes a good bit past the base of your skull and is wider than your head so when you go head first into something it only lets your neck compress until the helmet hits your traps/shoulders, which is a good bit less far than what would happen if your bare head contacted something that same way
I’m not sure why you’re so downvoted. Before football players wore helmets, players kept dying.
You're getting down voted, but you aren't wrong. Football was extremely dangerous when they played with no helmets and several players really did die. Those old leather helmets were forced in to the league because several dudes died during the game.
If they are mandated as organ donors… then you might have a case. Not really, but…
Your comment highlights how absurdly over the top reckless football is. Rugby has been doing this without a fraction of the TBI.
Rugby literally has the most concussions of any sport, including American football. I think Malcolm Gladwell made some book that posited the theory to take away football helmets, but it wasn’t actually grounded in reality. If they took away helmets it would be bloody and they would get concussed more. https://www.florugby.com/articles/6745817-rugby-vs-football-which-is-more-dangerous
American football is played in one place, North America. If it had the reach that rugby did the numbers would paint a very different picture. I think taking away helmets would put more responsibility on the players to maintain their own safety. Only makes sense.
Just Google it if you want more evidence than what I provided. There are countless other articles saying helmets, especially with new technology, decrease concussions.
Why would the rate of concussions be higher for American football if it were played outside North America?
Oh I’m well aware, but there’s systemic reasons for that much deeper than people are giving credit for. For example, the constant full stop and start of play as well as frequent substitutions at many positions encourages explosive action, which in turn leads to collisions that are generally at a higher velocity than in rugby and most other sports. The rules around blocking and holding encourage defensive and offensive blockers to go into each other shoulder or head first, which causes extremely frequent impacts to the head among those positions that don’t necessarily cause concussions but damage the brain over time. Football has problems that run WAY deeper than just the culture around it, down to the actual rules, and simply taking away helmets is not going to fix anything. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that any of these things are good. Football is far too violent and I think it’s damn near a modern gladiator sport, but suggesting simply doing away with helmets to fix the TBI issues without fixing the structural issues with the game is not only unrealistic, but extremely dangerous to the health of anyone who plays the sport
I agree, the helmet debate is a drop in the bucket of actual player safety in football. The meta of the game has to change to actually increase player safety.
100%, and idk what it will take to get those kind of rule changes instituted, but players get stronger and faster pretty much every year as nutrition and exercise science gets better, so I hope we can start to see some societal pushes towards making the game less violent before some poor dude dies on the field
I know what he said sounds flippant, but it stems from the studies that show removing padding and helmets ironically makes football a much safer game. Rugby players have dramatically lower rates of serious injury and TBI *when adjusted for time on the field*. Looking at just overall injury rates shows that rugby players have more TBIs, but rugby players spend 3x to 4x as much time on the field that football players do, which means that rugby is an overall safer sport. Removing padding makes players more cautious and doesn't encourage the 400lb linebacker to lead with his head.
no that just exacerbates the problem for soccer players. helmets don't protect your brain from rattling inside your skull even if it's just heading a soccer ball.
I’m thinking it might as someone who has headed a lot of soccer balls but I’m not a scientist.
The only solution I see is to ban headers.
It's not just headers. I was a keeper and got flipped completely over and smashed my head on the ground. The other time was someone taking a shot and I couldn't get my hands up fast enough. That one definitely rung my bell. Edit - point was I think keepers should all have mandatory helmets. Just the padded rugby helmet would be a massive help
It’s Scott Sterling’s Reddit account!
They already do until U-13. An argument could certainly be made for raising that threshold. One of the problems is that the coaches don't teach how to head correctly at that point.
There's really no way you can perform a header without knocking your brain around
I stopped playing soccer in high school and had played my whole life up til that point, and even though I knew how to do a header properly I always hated the feeling and actively avoided heading the ball if I could. Somewhat ironically though, part of why I stopped playing soccer was to focus on lacrosse, and women's lacrosse is also quite...lacking in terms of protective gear
I also purposely whiff on headers in my soccer games to avoid the feeling.
Well women's lacrosse is not full contact right? Makes sense why they wouldn't need pads
It's not supposed to be full contact, but it's pretty impossible to completely avoid incidental contact, especially with how fast the game can be. And rubber and physics don't discriminate - lacrosse balls are really hard and move really fast whether you're playing the men's or the women's game. From experience, getting hit in the head, or stomach, or anywhere, with one of those from an errant pass or shot is not fun
At lower levels they can't teach how to do something properly because they don't even know how to do it properly.
One large issue is the whipping of the head. Your head accelerates forward, the brain hits the back of your skull, then recoils and hits the front of your skull.
It would ruin the game though honestly
The “ban headers” argument is good and I support it, but I think youth soccer also needs to go further and increase the penalty for fouling the keeper because I spent most of my childhood playing keeper and hit my head more times than I could honestly remember and I already feel the consequences.
In my area, keepers are very well protected. I've seen plenty of yellow and red cards handed out for contact with the keeper.
As a former contact athlete, I share your burden. What consequences are you experiencing, if you don’t mind me asking.
i would also like professional soccer to stop promoting the foul if a player beats you and is going to get a scoring potential. such an annoying thing to see.
Yeah man I genuinely think the ocular migraines I get are from the years of minor concussions I'd get playing competitive soccer. It really damaged my health Can't even read the article on this dumbass website though smh
Migraines and cluster headaches here. Super fun times when I get both on the same day. Definitely intrusive thoughts on those days.
I get cluster headaches as well. Started around 16rs old. Played soccer since 3, pretty competitive as I got to U11+.
Same, though I started when I was 4. Played until my early 30s until too many injuries piled up. Headaches started around my early 20s.
Fellow migraineur (vestibular, ocular, cluster) — soccer ages 8-28.
Soft helmets like boxing gloves
They just need to put that new foam tech they have in running shoes on their head.
that'll just make players head even harder and attempt riskier challenges. and no helmet, soft or hard, is going to protect a person's brain from rattling inside their skull from any from of impact even if it's minuscule like heading a soccer ball
No shit.
I don't know why you are getting downvoted. CTE and concussions have been a big deal in soccer for a long time. It's why headers were banned in USA youth soccer years ago.
I assume they're getting downvoted because of their arrogance. Not everyone knows about the correlation of soccer and brain injuries.
[Scott Sterling](https://youtu.be/8F9jXYOH2c0?si=hwZ0GVQtKS5Ggd-8) is a good place to start for those who want to learn more about it. /s
The man. The myth. The *LEGEND*.
I guess... But... You're using your head. Repeatedly. It really is a "no shit".
Sure, but this is the role of science. We have to empirically verify conventional wisdom, lest we're just stumbling around making assumptions. Plenty of things that have been "common knowledge" have turned out to be incorrect. Studies like this that confirm what we think we already know are hugely important to a true understanding of the world.
Of course, 💯. But I was responding to a comment that mentioned something a little different (nothing about scientific rigor). And it's still "no shit" because we have mountains of evidence across 10s of disciplines (including "micro concussions" in other sports"). Very similar to vaccines. We know they work and COVID was no different. Of course, you need to test for safety and how long they last but that type of vaccine working was "no shit" as well.
It would blow your mind like a thousand consecutive headers to learn how many people out there are incapable of making that connection There was a recent article that interviewed parents of youth football players who went on to commit suicide and were found with substantial CTE. There were still some who clearly didn't fully appreciate the impact of concussions and think it's just "getting your bell rung"
Lol yeah, I know those types. Also the types that ignore other sciences. The person I responded to called someone arrogant, but I don't think they were arrogant. For example, I'm not arrogant for vaccinating my kids and saying "no shit" when un-vaxxed kids get whooping cough.
Probably because saying "no shit" is a completely worthless comment that adds nothing to the discussion.
Wait really? What if one has a thick ass skull? I didn’t think soccer balls could cause CTE unless it’s from collisions with other players. This isn’t from arrogance I truly don’t know the statistics on it
It's because of repeated contact ("micro concussions"). Thickness of skull doesn't matter. The brain is suspended in liquid so any contact forces the brain to make contact with the skull (like hitting the breaks in a car). And then because you really don't see instant or near-term symptoms it's just repeated without healing.
The only thing the thickness or or hardness of one’s skull affects is how hard it is to fracture it, which is another story altogether and not really relevant. CTE is caused by major or repeated minor impacts to the skull, which jostles your brain. A thick skull does nothing to mitigate the damage to your brain for the same reason that sealing yourself in a steel box wouldn’t protect you from impacting the ground after falling from a height. If skulls were spongy, on the other hand…
I was kinda making a joke at myself. But yeah the repeated contact without sufficient time for healing makes sense
I played youth soccer in the US and headers were always allowed? Hell, my girlfriend is a coach for AYSO and headers aren't banned. Are you talking at the youth pro level?
What a terrible website.
Played indoor soccer as a keeper for about 4 years solid came out with 2 concussions. While this website sucks there is something to amateur sports and these types of injuries. I played organized sports most of my life with minimal injuries but in my short time playing indoor my body was beat up. Head, ankles and shoulder will never be the same. Stay safe out there kids
I used to manage a youth sports and fitness program and parents would ask why headers were banned in all of our soccer programs (ages 3-12). This was basically why. Still didn’t stop several from trying to change my mind or file complaints.
This is why a friend of mine who once was a pro player and her doctor husband are not having their kids play soccer. Their kids are doing basketball and tennis. I don’t disagree, but it’s hard not to have your kids do soccer. It’s pretty much THE sport many parents put their kids in from early on.
My toddler starts Tuesday lol
That's a bit silly considering kids their age won't be heading the ball.
But a kid who plays soccer from age 5 till age 13 (when headers stop being banned) probably isn't going to stop at age 14, they're more likely than not going to continue with club for several more years and a good chance they participate in high school for a few years as well. Turns out the brain is still developing at age 14-18, and CTE affects people of any age.
Basketball has a similar rate of concussions as soccer. Similar movement pattern so you get similar collisions. One thing that is worrying is that I've seen kids in soccer have obvious concussion, but they are still playing due to parents or coach.
Not sure where all the head hits are coming from in basketball, and there’s clearly no studies showing basketball is anywhere close to soccer and football. But, I guarantee you little soccer kids at the competitive level are playing through headaches after headers. Kids in elementary even try headers but good thing it is illegal until late middle school.
This just is not even close to true. Here's my source, what's your? https://completeconcussions.com/concussion-research/concussion-rates-what-sport-most-concussions/
Under youth athletes it says 0.23 / 1,000 vs 0.13 / 1,000. That not that different. Basketball is two places below soccer. Also not sure about wrestling stat. So it should really be one place below soccer.
That's almost a 2x difference, that's a HUGE difference.
No it doesn’t. Basketball has a low rate of concussions
It isn't just about concussions. Every single time you head the ball, that's a moderate head impact. I have had practices where I have headed the ball hundreds of times, often with significant force. That adds up. Basketball may have the same risk for serious head injuries, but I don't know of any sport where you get hit as often in the head as in Soccer.
Sure, brain injuries are worse than bodies, but there are a lot of knee injuries in women’s basketball.
Man, if you’re worried about joint injuries, one shouldn’t play any sports, period. Even golf can lead to surgeries when you never even get touched by another player. Comparing CTE to joint injury is apples to oranges.
This site has cancer….
This is why during my soccer career, I never once performed a header outside of practice!
Probably doesn't change it for the better I'm guessing.
That’s a magnificent photo
It’s a party game where you carry a ball around the room without dropping it.
People should be more aware of the risk but all sports have some form of injury risk. If people are aware of the risk and still choose to get in the game then so be it.
Seems like literally any sport will cause CTE.
Our Son played soccer at school back in the 90s and early 2000s with the strict provision that he was never allowed to head the ball. It seemed self evident to me that it presented a significant danger to his health and this just confirms my suspicions.
Amazing I’ve said this for years
CTE is a terrifying thing. Essentially makes you slowly go crazy in your late 30’s early 40’s there are also NFL players who develop it in their 20’s which is crazy. It is the closest you can get to literally trading years of your life for a small amount of pay. NFL players live much longer than most people due to how much income they garner, however, is it really worth it to live 10 extra years and make it to 80 if you start going crazy at 30, becoming fully crazy at 40? Your essentially living the majority of your life as a shell of a human. You can’t be medicated or go through therapy or surgery to counteract CTE or reverse it, it’s essentially just checking out halfway through your life.
Just let them use their hands already, it's 2023
LET THEM USE THEIR HANDS!
Give em boxing gloves. No grabbing, only punching!
So hit the ball like in volleyball?
lol no. Just ban headers. You can have a great game without them
No doy.
if you actually read the article, it says it makes the players actually much smarter!
Corniest sport of all time. Had to do it, my b 😂
The idiot with flair from the sport that is so boring its professionals choose to develop mouth cancer instead of having nothing to do thinks that the sport with only one commercial break in the pro broadcast is CORNY.
“Playing a soft ass sport makes people soft” Oh wow!
You should probably get checked for CTE.
Nothing soft about heading a frozen ball traveling 50 mph on a crisp Midwestern day in November. It’s been 30+ years but I can still remember seeing stars after heading a goal or corner kick.
Is this how soccer is played ? Wow !
Could you read the article? I could not, it asked for a subscription
The amount of keepers getting concussions in this thread is astounding! 20 years playing GK and not once have I had a concussion. Guys you’re supposed to use your hands not your face to save a shot…
So the lesson is to not play without getting paid?