Does Reduced Ball Inflation Pressure in Association Football Decrease Head Impact Kinematics?

Reduced inflation pressure was overall an effective mitigation to reduce the kinematic magnitude of heading in football based upon these four kinematic metrics despite 10% of impacts exhibiting an increase in kinematic magnitude. The DAMAGE predictor of MPS exhibited 12 out of 13 cases where magnitude increased demonstrating the capacity for decreased inflation pressure to result in increased kinematics for an angular response derived metric, indicating that reducing inflation pressure is not a universal solution. Nonetheless DAMAGE still saw a net decrease in magnitude across all impacts. Metric magnitude was found to be sensitive to head orientation, impact location and ball type, demonstrating the importance of the sensitivity analysis in this study. Two impacts were recommended to represent the worst-case ball to head impact, one in each nominal orientation. These locations contrasted with those commonly used in literature, a finding pertinent to future experimental design in football heading research.