The Champion Safety Series: episode two | A Horse & Hound Podcast Advertising Series

A Horse & Hound Podcast Advertising Series with Champion

Welcome to the second episode of The Champion Safety Series, a Horse & Hound Podcast Advertising Series, in which our regular host Pippa Roome talks to Max Strandwitz from Mips and Champion’s Helen Riley about what the multi-directional impact protection system included in some riding helmets is and how it works to help keep riders safe.

This is the second in a six-part podcast series, produced in partnership with Champion. You can listen online here or via your favourite podcast app.

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What’s in The Champion Safety Series podcast: episode two

Max Strandwitz is the CEO of Mips, the multi-directional impact protection system developed to help redirect the energy that causes the dangerous rotational motion of the brain typically experienced by riders when they have a fall from their horse.

Max explains: “Mips is a low friction layer located inside a helmet… that redirects the energy which is normally absorbed by your head [in a fall]. To explain how that works, normally when… you fall off a horse you fall to the ground at an angle. When [you hit the ground] wearing a traditional helmet the rider’s head gets buried into the EPS foam and gets stuck. Inside your head your brain is floating in water – if I nod my head, my head and my brain normally moves independently from each other by around 10-15mm. Our system [is designed] to avoid the head coming to a sudden stop.

“At the point of impact, the Mips layer allows your head to continue to travel around 10-15mm, avoiding the head coming to a sudden stop, and preventing your head from absorbing the dangerous energies. We call that rotational motion and that is something that you want to avoid to make sure you don’t expose your brain to unnecessary angled impacts.”

During the podcast Max explains more about the Mips system, while Helen from Champion talks about how the company worked with Mips to launch the first Champion helmets featuring Mips in 2019 and how the range featuring this technology has grown since then.

You can also listen now to episode one of the The Champion Safety Series podcast for riding hat advocate Sarah Washington’s story about suffering a traumatic brain injury as a result of a fall, plus insight from Champion production engineer Ben Hanna on helmet design, testing and standards.

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