Not content with heading the ball, I switched to be being beaten up (rugby), to now trying to drown (kite surfing, surfing) and / or falling off a cliff (snowboarding). I am also about to embark on trying to do these better by buying what is known as a surf skate. Essentially a skateboard designed to behave like a surfboard.
But at least I dont try to drown myself in beer anymore.
I think most people “know” that changes in the structure of the vertebral disk leads to back pain. We know this because when you scan people with back pain you tend to see break down in the discs in that area. In reality though that breakdown is present in pretty much everyone once they reach their late 30s. In the vast majority of people there is no pain associated with it, its just those people are not routinely getting scanned. So it is a relationship that appears to exist only when the population being observed is biased (reporting back pain).
We have potentially the same issue with these brain scans - people with dementia and related conditions leave their brain to science and see these characteristic anatomical changes. What we don’t have is much data on the frequency of these changes in people without these conditions.
These sorts of imaging and mechanistic studies are important, but as you say, what is really key is understanding the out clinical outcomes that occur in these populations, relating the prevalence of them to the gen pop, and identifying any other commonalities among those with the outcome of interest that may explain it. low grade frequent is a very attractive explanation for athletes who end up with these conditions, but I think we’ve got a fair way to go before we can say with any confidence what sort of risk heading in football, especially in the modern day, provides.
OK, not pro football but had a really very strange experience yesterday and it will make a huge impact (no pun intended) in years to come. Due to COVID we’ve not had the huge family parties of old recently. All my wife’s relatives kids are now hitting 6,8,10 ish and thankfully prefer a round ball to one of those weird oval ones. So after the match we all went out to the lovely big garden for a good old game of drunk uncle kloptimist falls on his arse trying to do overhead kicks. To the point. I suggested the usual heads and volleys which we launched into. I couldn’t work out why the kids were always trying to kick the ball at shoulder height. I kept saying get in there with your head or where’s the diving header? Wasn’t until my cousin came out and told me that we were actually playing volleys as kids don’t (can’t) head the ball at that age. Now I’m no behavioural psychologist but surely heading a ball is an instinct or sub-thought reaction / reflex that you pick up as a kid? Every time I came out of goal I’d throw the ball head height to the nearest kid to put the next keeper one down. Standard practice when I was young but they’d either duck or try and kick it. The days of the perfectly judged header are numbered I suspect.
Off topic but Can I ask why as a keeper your throwing the ball at head height? I’d never do that. Less chance of controlling it for a start.
We’ve played nothing over neck height 5 aside for years at training
Heads and volleys. Keeper catches the ball and comes out, throws the ball to nearest player to score an easy header and puts the new keeper one down.
How big is this five aside? Or are you playing with the same goal?
Same goal.
Not in pro football but starting for the younger players.
a friend of mine is a club president with 2500 youths in their system. this has been coming for a while. her eldest daughter was in the whitecaps women’s programme and on full ride at UBC before accumulated concussions forced her to quit playing.
Back in the war, children used to line up to header away bombs dropped by Jerrys in the Blitz. The people who had that spirit would think a ban on heading footballs was loopy!
Not every time…
Good bit of cross thread trolling there.
Didn’t think Phillips was that old…
Let’s just play the game with a beach ball, replace football boots with slippers and ban any physical contact. No need for shin pads then.
What do you think that study means about the risk of heading in football?
It is a confusing title, and has as many questions for me as answers.
I am still of a view that proper research on the correalation between heading and brain damage in the modern game will yield far less i stances that previous times.
Change of equipment, changes in lifestyle (cigs, drink) will mean far less instances of brain damage.
I think that if we continue with the sanitisation of sport we will be left playing on PlayStation with ideas of games rather than physical sport.
Boxing, rugby, football are all contact sports and all at risk of being banned (boxing) or sanitised beyond belief.
Surely we can play the game with tackles, heading, contact without further interference
What so now I’m not allowed to let the children I coach to expose their developing brains to the cumulative effects of heading the ball?
Game’s gone, lads. Next they’ll be telling me I’m not allowed to toughen them up by throwing a medicine ball into their guts.
See, what you’ve done there is to look at a limited ban on very small children heading the ball, and fly off on one suggesting next they’ll be trying to ban tackles and contact in the sport.
I hate to break it to you but we already tell the 6/7 year olds I coach that they are not allowed to slide tackle and must stay on their feet. Why? Because at such a young age a bad tackle or injury is very likely to put them off playing for the rest of their lives. Football for kids is meant to be fun.
See thats not what I did at all…nice editing on your behalf to dismiss a genuine argument.
And its not going off on one to suggest that tackling will one day be banned in football. It will be because of the whining minority that will fuck up sport in general.
Football for kids should be fun, but it should be football, and coached in a way that it remains a sport that allows for contact. I played football, coached football and watched kids football for years. And I never saw a bad tackle at underage level that ended a career, because we coached the kids in the art of tackling. And taught them how to meet a tackle.
Maybe you know better, but I genuinely feel the game I love is being sanitised beyond belief.