A study was recently published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine reviewing the Amateur International Boxing Association’s recent rule change to remove headgear from international competition. In the recent study (Because Not All Blows To the Head are the Same) the authors suggest that one type of impact, namely head clashes, can lead to … More Headgear Revisited – Study Suggests Increased Head Clashes Reason to Bring Back Headgear in Amateur Boxing

As recently discussed, one of the most important questions in combat sports medicine is how much head trauma is too much? Although the answer is not known, the current regulatory landscape could use improvement in deciding when regulators should pull the plug on an athlete that is ‘too tough for their own good‘.  To this … More Professional Boxing Urged to Adopt Uniform National Standards For Brain Safety

Update – August 18, 2015 – another useful discussion was recently published in the text “Brain Neurotrauma” confirming that more insight into CTE is needed with the authors noting “Despite extensive publicity, the real risk of CTE among amateur and professional players has not been measured or adequately characterized and notions derived from autopsy studies, … More CTE Linked To Duration of Contact More Than Concussive History

Getting hit in the head is not good.  How much head trauma is too much?   As the executive director of the Sports Legacy Institute tells us, nobody really knows but the connection to CTE is clearly there – What is known, however, is that trauma is cumulative and there is only so much mileage an athlete … More Brain Injury in Boxing Increases With Level of Competition

Adding to this site’s archives canvassing safety studies in combat sports, two studies were published this month in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.  The first addressed injury rates in elite level amateur boxing.  The second addressed the impact performance of various headgear. The first study titled “Boxing Injury Epidemiology in the Great Britain Team” … More Studies Published Addressing Boxing Injury Rates and Headgear Effectiveness

Adding to this site’s archived posts addressing safety studies in combative sports, an importation study was published in the Annals of Neurology this month finding that traumatic brain injury likely causes accelerated atrophy “aging” the brain by an average of over four years. In the recent study conducted by James H. Cole, PhD, Robert Leech, … More Traumatic Brain Injury Ages the Brain By Over Four Years

Adding to this site’s archives of combat sports safety studies, important findings were published today connecting reduced brain volume and slower processing speed to the number of years and the number of bouts combat sports athletes endure. In today’s study (Repeated head trauma is associated with smaller thalamic volumes and slower processing speed) published at the … More Number of Bouts and Years of Fighting Related to Reduced Brain Volume in Boxers and MMA Fighters

In my ongoing efforts to highlight studies addressing safety issues in combat sports, an interesting study was recently published by Benjamin Lee and Stuart McGill from the Spine Biomechanics Laboratory, at the University of Waterloo (Canada) testing the peak forces caused by MMA gloves contrasted with 16 oz boxing gloves.  The study also reviewed the time … More MMA  Gloves  Produce “4‐5  Times  Greater Peak Force” Than Boxing Gloves

As a long time fan of MMA and other combat sports I feel past, current and future athletes are owed a fair and sober discussion of the realities of traumatic brain injury.  Yes a bit of common sense tells us these sports have inherent dangers and yes being hit in the head is not good … More Guy Mezger Shares the Legacy of “17 Years of Being Hit in the Head”