Shin guard impact protection

Philippens, M.; Wismans, J.

Affiliations

¹Department of Injury Prevention, TNO Road-Vehicles Research Institute, Delft, The Netherlands

Abstract

Test methods simulating soccer kicks and field hockey ball strikes were evaluated to assess commercial shin guard performance for injury prevention. Literature on injury criteria, tolerance levels and on loading conditions relevant for lower leg injuries in soccer and field hockey has been reviewed.

High speed films of a field hockey player were made to estimate hockey stick and ball impact velocities. A number of impact tests were evaluated with respect to reproducibility, discrimination between shin guards and load conditions.

The results of the various test procedures will be discussed. It was concluded that a stiff impactor with rigidly supported shin guards provides the best results’. An evaluation of nine different shin guards, commercially available in the Netherlands, indicated that all nine shin guards show a significant reduction of lower leg impact load. Some shin guards performed better than others for reducing the severity of leg impacts.

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