Heading/Concussion

[Unregistered]

Not a political comment, really. Just an honest question of social priorities. Do you really think that all of the other countries even care about brain development, accumulation of sub-concussive impacts, etc. in their young soccer players? In the same way, do you think Texas football dads are that concerned about similar issues with their young football prodigies?

It's a worthy discussion. Shutting it down with complaints about our lack of international success is not terribly productive.

Concussions happen in soccer, football, baseball, basketball, hockey ...... i think we should outlaw sports .... that should solve the issue.

[Unregistered]

Oh look..a butt-hurt American

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/w...ion-brain.html

Science... realz over feelz.

[Unregistered]

Concussions happen in soccer, football, baseball, basketball, hockey ...... i think we should outlaw sports .... that should solve the issue.

I once saw a guy hiking in NH wearing a biking helmet in case he tripped.........

[Unregistered]

I once saw a guy hiking in NH wearing a biking helmet in case he tripped.........

If he got a concussion, I think we should outlaw walking in NH with a biking helmet ASAP so no one else gets one.

[Unregistered]

It's bad in girls high school & college soccer as well...again, go watch a female game and see what happens when ball goes in the air

I've been saying this for years. Decades. I attribute to the fact that girls have a harder time judging the trajectory of the ball than do boys. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that males have better space awareness than females. I know I'm going to take flack for saying this, but it is one of the inherent differences between males and females. Yes, girls can learn no doubt, but it just doesn't come naturally.

[Unregistered]

I've been saying this for years. Decades. I attribute to the fact that girls have a harder time judging the trajectory of the ball than do boys. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that males have better space awareness than females. I know I'm going to take flack for saying this, but it is one of the inherent differences between males and females. Yes, girls can learn no doubt, but it just doesn't come naturally.

Absolutely no science to back that comment up. Males are not genetically predisposed to greater spatial awareness than females. It has more to do with what play activities the child did during early development. I’ve known girls who could shoot a basketball or throw and catch a football better than most boys because their dads played with them early on. Girls who play softball, basketball, volleyball, tennis, etc are just as good at spatial awareness as boys who do similar sports when accounting for age and length of athletic participation.

As to why girls and women’s soccer lag at heading, it is rarely trained, even at older ages and more female players are afraid of the ball/pain/impact to the face. That has more to do with confidence, aggression, tolerance for pain and discomfort and a general warrior spirit that is often missing from run of the mill female athletes.

[Unregistered]

Absolutely no science to back that comment up. Males are not genetically predisposed to greater spatial awareness than females. It has more to do with what play activities the child did during early development. I’ve known girls who could shoot a basketball or throw and catch a football better than most boys because their dads played with them early on. Girls who play softball, basketball, volleyball, tennis, etc are just as good at spatial awareness as boys who do similar sports when accounting for age and length of athletic participation.

As to why girls and women’s soccer lag at heading, it is rarely trained, even at older ages and more female players are afraid of the ball/pain/impact to the face. That has more to do with confidence, aggression, tolerance for pain and discomfort and a general warrior spirit that is often missing from run of the mill female athletes.

^^ This is right. My daughters all played basketball and softball up until about U13. They could catch and judge a header very well because they were used to judging the trajectory of basketballs and especially softballs because of pop up drills. They still use headers a lot and kill the ball in the air as well as any boy (and no concussions, either). Want to help the issue? Have little kids catch tennis balls in practice (or as homework with their parents) and start little with lighter soccer balls and soft tosses to strengthen their necks and teach them the proper technique for heading a ball so they are ready when they can. I think each part of the issue has been mentioned before 1.) They can't judge a ball well in the air, 2.) they are afraid, 3.) they have poor technique and let the ball attack their head instead of striking their head through the ball (with neck and shoulders behind it as much as possible) 4.) their necks are not as strong as they need to be. These issues are easy (and safe) to fix if you do it over time and with a little common sense. Boys pick this stuff up naturally because so many of them play other sports that really help when they are little. Girls can do the same .... especially since so many of them are bigger than boys through about U13. Doing away with all heading at young ages is only going to make the problem worse on the girls side (boys will head balls later with their friends regardless).

[Unregistered]

Absolutely no science to back that comment up. Males are not genetically predisposed to greater spatial awareness than females. It has more to do with what play activities the child did during early development. I’ve known girls who could shoot a basketball or throw and catch a football better than most boys because their dads played with them early on. Girls who play softball, basketball, volleyball, tennis, etc are just as good at spatial awareness as boys who do similar sports when accounting for age and length of athletic participation.

As to why girls and women’s soccer lag at heading, it is rarely trained, even at older ages and more female players are afraid of the ball/pain/impact to the face. That has more to do with confidence, aggression, tolerance for pain and discomfort and a general warrior spirit that is often missing from run of the mill female athletes.

Actually there is plenty of science to back up that statement.

[Unregistered]

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...05&oe=5C1815A7

[Unregistered]

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...85&oe=5C2068A0

[Unregistered]

Actually there is plenty of science to back up that statement.

Should be very easy for your post several references then.

[Unregistered]

Actually there is plenty of science to back up that statement.

"It's also thought that the male sex hormone testosterone plays a role in spatial ability. One finding that supports this theory is that women with above average levels of testosterone in their body perform better at mental rotation tasks than women with average levels of testosterone."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbo...al_tests.shtml

"Testosterone plays an important role in mammalian brain development. In neural regions with appropriate receptors testosterone, or its metabolites, influences patterns of cell death and survival, neural connectivity and neurochemical characterization. Consequently, testosterone exposure during critical periods of early development produces permanent behavioural changes. In humans, affected behaviours include childhood play behaviour, sexual orientation, core gender identity and other characteristics that show sex differences (i.e. differ on average between males and females). "
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17074984


"Men consistently outperform women on spatial tasks.... a University of Iowa study shows a connection between this sex-linked ability and the structure of the parietal lobe, the brain region that controls this type of skill."
http://news-releases.uiowa.edu/2008/...ial-skill.html


"After decades of research, spatial cognition has emerged as one of the few areas where women do not perform as well as men on tasks like mental rotation or “wayfinding,” orienting oneself in physical space."
http://nautil.us/issue/32/space/men-...ke-this-course


"University researchers have demonstrated for the first time that boys have an advantage over girls in their understanding of spatial relationships by age 4 1/2, much earlier than previously thought."
http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/991118/spatial.shtml


Changes in spatial cognition and brain activity after a single dose of testosterone in healthy women

•
We administered testosterone in a randomized, placebo-controlled design to 42 women.

•
We performed fMRI during wayfinding tasks in a recently learned virtual environment.

•
Testosterone improved some aspects of spatial abilities in women.

•
Testosterone increased medial temporal lobe activity during virtual navigation.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...66432815302680

[Unregistered]

Should be very easy for your post several references then.

Want more?

However, that's not to say that girls/women can't improve their spatial abilities, but the assumption that the difference between male and female heading ability is just the difference in how and when they were taught is a fallacy.

[Unregistered]

Want more?

However, that's not to say that girls/women can't improve their spatial abilities, but the assumption that the difference between male and female heading ability is just the difference in how and when they were taught is a fallacy.

Yeah, males vs females. Typical male boy all over the place playing from 2-12 years old throwing and catching anything in site while a typical girl is playing with dolls .... sorry to be so 1950s but I would bet on average boys are typically playing sports games as little kids and few girls are. One of your ARTICLES (not publications) suggests this:

"However, the origins of the differences in spatial skills between boys and girls are unclear. “They could be related to the way they are reared, caused by biological factors or both,” Levine said. Boys tend to play in a way that encourages spatial-skill development. They play with blocks and build models, for example. But researchers do not know if they develop spatial skills through these influences, or if their brains have evolved to process spatial information differently, perhaps in a way related to the division of labor between men and women in hunter/gatherer societies." TRANSLATION: We have no empirical evidence and we are totally guessing ... this is what we do in the fields of psychology, sociology and the newly popular neuroscience fields.

Got anything with actual test results and sample sizes greater than hypothetical guesses made up by "researchers"? Nature vs nurture, and in this case, I am guessing mostly nature and environmental factors not gender differences.

[Unregistered]

I think a lot of kids in general are bad computing trajectories. I lose count of the number of kids that just stand where they are looking confidently airborne like the balls going to come down where they are and they miscalculate where they need to be by 10-15 feet.