Why You Should Care About Helmet Testing
What You Need to Know Before You Buy a Football Helmet
Most athletes, parents, and coaches walk into a sporting goods store or scroll through pages online and make a football helmet purchase based on brand recognition, price, or how it looks. However, in doing so, they are overlooking one of the most important factors of a helmet: the testing. The testing behind a helmet is a crucial consideration in the long-term protection and head health of any football player- and it is important to understand the ratings that are assigned to each type of helmet when making a choice.
The Truth About “Protective” Equipment
The word “protective” gets thrown around a lot in the sports equipment world. But protection isn’t a feeling, it’s a measurement. There’s a significant difference between a product that looks safe and one that has been proven to be safer through rigorous, independent testing.
The hard truth is that most consumers have no idea that standardized testing protocols even exist for football helmets and helmet accessories. And without that knowledge, it’s nearly impossible to make a truly informed purchase.
Start With Your Helmet & Know Its Rating
Not all helmets are created equal, and the difference between a 2-STAR and a 5-STAR helmet isn’t a matter of comfort preference – it’s a measurable difference in concussion risk.
Virginia Tech’s Helmet Lab has developed the most widely respected independent rating system for football helmets available to consumers, with a 5-STAR (Summation of Tests for the Analysis of Risk) rating being the highest score awarded. The Virginia Tech ratings are independent, free from manufacturer influence, and are based on the same science the NFL uses to evaluate equipment. Before purchasing a helmet, we recommend visiting helmet.beam.vt.edu to view testing and ratings.
How the Rating System Works
Virginia Tech tests each helmet through 48 standardized laboratory impacts using a pendulum designed to replicate helmet-to-helmet contact conditions in football. They measure both linear and rotational head accelerations, the two forces most associated with concussion risk, at the front, front boss, side, and back of the helmet, across low, medium, and high impact energies.
Why test at different impact energies? Because low-severity impacts are the most common in football, but high-severity impacts are the ones most likely to cause a concussion. Virginia Tech weighs each impact scenario based on how frequently a player would realistically experience it and calculates an overall score that estimates concussion risk across those exposures.
The result: a star rating from 1 to 5, where more stars mean lower concussion risk. Virginia Tech recommends choosing a helmet rated 4 or 5 stars.
Add A Guardian Cap
Once you’ve built the strongest helmet foundation you can, a Guardian Cap adds a tested, validated layer of protection on top of every helmet.
Three of the most respected independent research institutions in sports biomechanics have evaluated Guardian Caps: Virginia Tech, Stanford University, and BioCore (the official biomechanics lab of the NFL). Across rigorous laboratory testing, every evaluation reached the same conclusion: Guardian Caps reduce the severity of head impacts beyond any bare helmet alone can.
Stanford University: Validated Across Real Conditions
Researchers at Stanford’s Department of Bioengineering tested Guardian Caps across six impact locations, three impact speeds, and three helmet models, then extended their study with an on-field investigation using instrumented mouthguards with collegiate linebackers.
Guardian Caps reduced angular head accelerations and two established brain injury risk metrics, DAMAGE and HARM, across the majority of tested conditions. HARM values were reduced by an average of 25% at lower impact speeds, 18% at mid-range speeds, and 10% at higher impact speeds.
The research received the Athanasiou Award from the Biomedical Engineering Society. Lead author Dr. Nicholas Cecchi has stated that every reputable peer-reviewed laboratory study he has reviewed, including those by Virginia Tech and BioCore, supports the conclusion that padded shell covers improve helmets’ ability to mitigate brain injury risk metrics.
BioCore: Tested at NFL-Level Impact Speeds
BioCore, commissioned by the NFL and NFLPA, tested Guardian Cap NXT at NFL linemen injury impact speeds, among the highest-energy impacts in the sport. This wasn’t a controlled lab exercise designed for favorable conditions. It was a stress test at the extreme end of what helmets face.
The results held. Guardian Caps produced a statistically significant improvement in impact performance, with HARM reduced by up to 23% and an average reduction of 9%. Aggregate reductions reached 8% for incidence and 10.3% for exposure, with individual helmet combinations showing reductions as high as 16.9%.
And in a 2025 field study published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine, analysis of NFL preseason practice data found that Guardian Cap use was associated with a statistically significant reduction in practice concussion rates. Real games. Real players. Real data.
Virginia Tech: Caps Can Reduce Concussion Risk By Over 60%
In 2024, Virginia Tech tested the Guardian Cap XT and NXT across 240 impact tests using their established varsity football helmet testing protocol, the same methodology behind the star ratings described above.
Single add-on (one player wearing a Guardian Cap):
- Guardian Cap XT: 15.5% reduction in concussion risk
- Guardian Cap NXT: 34.1% reduction in concussion risk
Double add-on (both players in a collision wearing Guardian Caps):
- Guardian Cap XT: 21.8% reduction in concussion risk
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Guardian Cap NXT: 62.8% reduction in concussion risk
When both players involved in a collision are wearing Guardian Cap NXT, the combined system is associated with a 62.8% reduction in concussion risk compared to bare helmets alone. Protection isn’t just about what you’re wearing; it’s about what the whole contact system looks like.
What to Do With All of This
The research is consistent. Three institutions. Multiple methodologies. Consistent conclusions. Here’s how to put it into action:
Step 1: Check the Virginia Tech ratings before you buy any football helmet.
Visit helmet.beam.vt.edu and look for helmets with 4 or 5 stars, as this safety factor matters more than brand loyalty or price alone.
Step 2: Understand that add-ons aren’t all the same.
The difference that Guardian Cap XT and NXTs offer when it comes to protection are significant, and are proven in the numbers above. When evaluating a helmet add-on, look for Virginia Tech data specifically- if a product hasn’t been independently tested, that’s your answer.
Step 3: Think about the whole system.
The double add-on data from Virginia Tech suggests that when a program equips all players with Guardian Caps, the collective protection benefit compounds. For coaches and athletic directors, this isn’t just an equipment decision, but a program-wide safety strategy.
Step 4: Demand the data before you buy anything.
Any product claiming to improve safety should be able to point you to independent, peer-reviewed research. Not internal testing or endorsements, but published, reliable third-party science.
The Bottom line
The most important thing you can do as a buyer, whether you’re a parent, a coach, or an athletic director, is to stop making equipment decisions without data. Virginia Tech has made it easy with free, publicly available, regularly updated ratings. Once you’ve built the best helmet foundation you can, Guardian Cap gives you independent, peer-reviewed evidence that the add-on you’re putting on top of it is making a real, scientifically backed claim.
Check Virginia Tech’s current helmet ratings at helmet.beam.vt.edu. To learn more about Guardian Cap’s testing and research, visit guardiansports.com.
About Guardian Sports
Founded in 2010, Guardian Sports is on a mission to better protect athletes at every level of play. Its flagship product, the Guardian Cap, was originally developed to reduce head impacts during football practice and has since expanded into game-day use across all levels of play. Guardian Sports also created the LOOP flag football headband, PEARL lacrosse balls, FLEX chinstrap, and bio-based turf INFILL. Trusted by athletes nationwide, Guardian continues to lead in safety-driven innovation. Learn more at www.guardiansports.com
