2011 KAHPERD International Sport Science Congress, Korea

425

Safety Performance Evaluation of Selected Impact Sites of Taekwondo Headgear

O'Sullivan David Chung-Ang University Shin Insik Seoul National University
Introduction: With taekwondo (TKD), a full contact martial art having practitioners in over 192 nations, head injuries during competition have become of concern. The incidence of head injuries in taekwondo competition ranges from 5.5 to 50.2 per 1000 athlete exposures (1). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the safety performance of KTA and WTF approved headgear. Methods: To measure the impact attenuation of headgear a 500G tri-axial accelerometer was mounted at the center of gravity of the hybrid II dummy head (H2D). The H2D was connected to a hanging pendulum (mass = 25 kg) to represent the inertial properties of the upper body of an H2D. A bowling ball (mass = 6.75 kg) was suspended by a steel lined cable and used to impart impacts. Two light sensors were placed at a fixed distance before the point of impact of the striker to calculate the final velocity of the striker before impact. A customized written labVIEW program was used for acquisition of light sensors and accelerometer data. Five different commercially available TKD headgear (Adidas, Duflex, KOMAS, Mooto and Vision Martial Arts) were selected for impact testing. Three different energy impact levels; low, medium and high were tested to investigate the response of the headgear at different rates of impact magnitudes (Table 1). The high and low energy impact testing level was established in accordance with the ASTM standard (2). For the low and medium energy impact magnitudes, three trials were performed, and two trials were conducted so as to prevent the headgear from being destroyed due to impacts. Two-way repeated measures ANOVA significance level of 0.05 were used to identify differences in impact attenuation between each headgear sample. Results: Table 1. Average RLA values for Right Side Impacts Brand Low Energy (56.27J) Medium Energy (120 J) Adidas 95.414.88 g 120.71 1.12 g Duflex 72.46 0.38 g 92.17 2.95 g KOMAS 98.80 20.86 g 131.22 29.64 g Mooto 173.9716.90 g 174.29 24.30g Vision 128.60 30.15 g 215.09 8.07 g

Fife P. Gabriel Dong-A University

High Energy (144J) 132.80 2.19 g 112.13 0.18 g 177.75 22.25 g 180.13 43.28 g 235.24 15.74 g

Conclusions: With the significant differences between the impact attenuation of various headgear materials, there is the possibility of improving current headgear designs. References: 1.Koh, J.O., & Cassidy, J.D. (2004) Incidence study of head blows and concussions in competition taekwondo. Clin J Sport Med. Mar;14(2):72-9. 2. ASTM F2397 - 09 Standard Specification for Protective Headgear Used in Martial Arts