Opro Tackles Unseen Head Impacts With New Product

Mouthguard manufacturer OPRO has partnered with Sports & Wellbeing Analytics (SWA) to launch a new product which will monitor and manage head impact data in rugby.

OPRO+ will utilise PROTECHT technology, which has been developed and fine-tuned for over two years by SWA. Whereas a GPS system focuses on the running aspects of the game, the collation and analysis of the impact data allows coaches to optimise training drills, reducing unintended impact load and avoiding training injuries in the contact part of the sport.

Until now, there has been no objective way to monitor all head impacts, to measure the force of impact and the rotation of the head as a result of impact. According to the latest injury data from Premiership Rugby, almost 40% of injuries and 20% of head injuries occur in training, despite this being a more controllable environment. Application of the PROTECHT system allows coaches to optimise team training drills to reduce impacts while still achieving overall training and performance goals.

OPRO+ mouthguards containing the PROTECHT chips provide rugby with a solution by transmitting the head impact data of each player to a laptop. This offers objective information about impacts experienced by the team in matches and in certain positions during training drills. The coach is then able to adjust accordingly to optimise performance through drill enhancement and to reduce unintended impacts.

OPRO, which is the official mouthguard partner of England Rugby, New Zealand Rugby, Australia Rugby and 11 of the 12 Gallagher Premiership teams, will continue negotiations with its current partners to make OPRO+ available to as many elite teams as possible. The end goal is that OPRO+ will be available to amateur, as well as elite teams.

OPRO Chief Executive Officer David Allen said: “OPRO+ is the next stage in the evolution of our mouthguards. The data OPRO+ provides will help us all to better understand and manage impact and in play collision.

“Players will wear their OPRO+ mouthguards during training, so that team staff will continually be able to collect data that will give a clear picture of a team’s day to day impact in the contact part of the game in a similar way that GPS systems do for the running game.”

SWA Chief Executive Officer Chris Turner added: “The development of the PROTECHT system has ultimately been focused on one key priority; reducing the volume and intensity of impacts for the players.

“The system allows objective surveillance so that unseen head impacts are recognised and understood and this data provides a new layer of information that will inform coaches to enable them to make better informed decisions about training drill design and allowing them to reduce unintended impacts in training. This adds a new layer of data to aid performance management for the team.

“We are already seeing that this data is supporting the performance environment of a rugby club as adaptations can be made to training loads and drills and as the PROTECHT system provides a far greater understanding of the occurrence and intensity of impacts.”