Athletic Equipment Designed Around Safety

If safety is your number one priority, you’ve come to the right place. First Team offers a great selection of athletic equipment designed with player safety in mind. You’ll love that so many of our products include features that keep athletes safer. In addition, you’ll be getting durable equipment that’s backed by an industry-leading warranty. Check out some of our many options for safe athletic equipment.

Padding

For items like portable basketball goals, volleyball net posts and football goals, adding padding is an easy way to increase safety without going over budget. First Team offers an excellent selection of padding for the actual posts of the goals as well as backboard padding. These items can easily be added to your equipment to reduce sports-related injuries on the court or on the field. Many of our products have actually been designed to comply with NCAA or high school specifications as well.

An added bonus with safety padding is that it offers a great opportunity to add a little extra team spirit to your games. Many of our athletic equipment padding products can be made with team colors and/or custom lettering in order to show support for the home team.

Nets

Not all nets for athletic equipment are made with safety in mind. That’s why First Team sells netting products that are geared at keeping players protected during games. For example, our Heavy Duty HTPP Hexagonal Soccer Nets are made with non-abrasive, knotless netting. This prevents burns, scrapes and cuts from incidents involving the net while still providing a durable backdrop for your goal.

For volleyball, we offer net cable covers. This handy product can easily be added to the net to keep players safe when they come into contact with the net cables.

These and other helpful safety products can be found at First Team. We’re dedicated to providing a variety of athletic equipment that will help keep your players safe.

General Sports Safety Guidelines, Injury Prevention and Recovery

Proper attention to both physical safety and health concerns can really have a positive impact on sports participation. For anyone competing in sports, whether it is youngsters just starting out in a particular activity or athletes playing at a much higher level, a checklist of proper safety precautions is a wise course to follow.

What are some general sport safety tips?

Warm Ups

Before beginning a game or a practice, make sure to undertake proper warm-up procedures to loosen up. This, in conjunction with a regimen of stretching, can help prevent cramping and muscle pulls. It is important to hydrate not just during and after strenuous athletic activity, but before, as well. And this is something you should do even if you will not be competing in a hot climate – even on a cool day or in a cool gym, it is important to stay properly hydrated.

Safety Equipment

Depending on the sport, you’ll need to protect your body, whether that means extra padding and armor for hockey and football players, batting helmets for baseball, goggles for players who normally wear prescription glasses (rather than contact lenses) and jockstraps for males. For football players, padding and protection is essential for many parts of the body, and the increased awareness of concussions and neck injuries in that sport (as well as other sports) extends not only to the protective gear worn, but to the extra attention that must be paid to proper fundamentals and technique. Poor technique (i.e., running or tackling with the head down in football or using the helmet as a spearing weapon) can heighten the chance for serious injury.

Many kids who are not old enough to wear contact lenses but who normally require eyeglasses have taken to wearing sports specs that are safer and harder to break than glasses. Another tip that goes beyond equipment and physical preparation that can help keep yourself and those around you is good sportsmanship. Tempers can sometimes get the best of athletes, but there is never an excuse or a rationalization for throwing equipment in anger. Keep your perspective and composure on the field of play, on the bench and in the dugout at all times.

Injuries and First Aid

If the unfortunate occurs and athlete does incur a serious injury during the heat of action, in many cases, medical advances have made recovering and rehabbing from such setbacks much more viable than was once the case. A torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in an athlete’s knee used to signal a veritable death sentence to that player’s sports endeavors. Likewise, someone who tore a ligament in their elbow also formerly faced severe limitations going forward. But now, surgery to repair those two types of injuries, among others, has become so much more advanced and sophisticated that the prognosis for such orthopedic setbacks is often much more optimistic than was once the case.

Another key to better sports health in the 21st century has been the advances made in the field of physical therapy. Rehabilitating after a severe injury is still a grueling process, but the proliferation of qualified physical therapists and sophisticated PT centers has made the outcome after injuries and surgery much more palatable for today’s athlete than the athletes of a generation ago.

Equipment Padding and Why You Need It

Upgrade the appearance of your gymnasium while making it a significantly safer venue for basketball games and other sporting events by installing the proper wall padding and column padding.

Basketball is a game that can be played at a breakneck pace, but that doesn’t mean the players in your gym should risk their safety – or otherwise risk incurring potentially serious injuries – because of a lack of adequate padding to cushion impacts around the rim and basket support.

Equipment Padding

Wall and column padding, which can also enhance the level of sound-deadening to keep your gym from becoming a cacophony of noise, can make any gym a safer place for competition. BodyGuard padding from First Team comes in a choice of 16 team colors with 2″ thick foam protection wrapped in a vinyl covering that is also fire resistant. Pads are mounted permanently to the wall through a 7/16″ thick plywood backing. The padding comes with a 1″ lip top and bottom so it can be attached to the wall. High Impact wall padding and column padding comes with the image of your choice digitally printed as well as all the same safety features contained in the BodyGuard padding.

Player Safety

Safety padding is also essential for the poles of a basketball backboard system. Constructed of high-density foam and vinyl, First Team basketball pole safety padding is available in a variety of sizes to keep players safe when they stumble out of bounds. All-weather materials are employed so the safety padding can also be used on outdoor courts at recreation centers as well as in indoor gymnasium courts. First Team also carries pole base safety pads, also known as “gusset pads,” that can cushion hard falls.

Basketball players require more padding because they wear less protection and are more exposed to the potential of injury than athletes playing other sports, and, on top of that, they are playing in more confined areas where it’s not always easy to slow down while heading full-speed out of bounds. Nonetheless, padding for goals, nets and goal post columns in football, soccer and volleyball is also important and available from First Team.

Is It Time for a Professional Inspection of My Equipment?

When you buy athletic equipment from First Team, you’ll get an industry-leading warranty with every purchase. However, just because a product has a 10-year warranty doesn’t mean you should go a decade without having it inspected. Athletic equipment is always safest when it is regularly inspected and maintained. Keeping an eye on each piece of equipment is a great way to help ensure the safety of all players.

Personal vs. Professional Inspections

It’s smart to do your own regular inspections on your sports equipment. Mark weekly or monthly inspections on your calendar to remind you to look over your equipment for any possible damages or deterioration. For example, you can double-check that no screws are loose and make sure no rust has developed. Use your assembly guide or owner’s manual to make yourself familiar with all parts and pieces, especially for larger items like soccer goals or football goals.

In addition, you’ll want to schedule professional inspections for your equipment. This will require an outside contractor or equipment specialist who can look more closely at your equipment. In addition to looking for the same potential issues that you’ll look for in your personal inspections, a pro athletic equipment inspector will focus on potential safety hazards and complying with safety guidelines.

When to Schedule A Pro Inspection

The frequency of professional equipment inspections should be determined by two factors. First, check the manufacturer’s guidelines for inspections. Some manufacturers will have their own recommendations about how often a professional inspection should be scheduled.

In addition, you’ll need to check with any governing bodies associated with the sports you’re playing. For example, high schools and colleges must comply with their state’s regulations for sports safety. Be sure you’re in touch with these governing associations so you can stay up to date on the requirements for your equipment inspections.

First Team offers a great selection of top-notch athletic equipment. Contact us if you have any questions about inspections for the sports gear on our site.

Storing Your Athletic Equipment for the Winter

As the cold weather makes its appearance, individuals need to consider the storage of athletic equipment for the winter months. While it can be tempting to just shove all of the equipment in a designated area and walk away from it, the proper storage of equipment is heavily encouraged since it extends the lifespan of it.

When tasked with storing your equipment, you should first consider which equipment actually needs to be stored and what can withstand the winter weather. Jerseys, material nets, and balls are all items that need to be properly stored where as posts and poles can be left outside in the elements. If you have protective padding such as post pads on outdoor equipment such as basketball posts, football goal posts or volleyball sets, you may want to consider removing them and storing them in a dry location as it will increase the life of the padding.

Once your equipment is sorted, you should then assess the condition of the equipment. Check for any stains, tears, or punctures. Put the items that can be mended in one pile and create a discard pile for the items that are beyond repair.

After you have distinguished the condition of your items, it’s important to ensure that everything is properly cleaned and dried before packing it away. For jerseys tend to any stains and mend any tears, for equipment wipe it down and check for any missed damage during the process, and lastly deflate any balls but remember to keep the inflating devices with them.

Following the cleaning and repairing of any items, you should then begin to organize them. A tactic to keep items readily available and organized is to group similar items by sport. This way you can create bins that contain everything you’ll need to be ready to play once the weather becomes warm.

Whether you choose to organize your equipment by sport, or in some other way, the next important step is ensuring that it will not be exposed to excess dirt or moisture. Most sport equipment is made of materials which need to breathe. So using plastic as a storage method is heavily discouraged. Instead, use cloth materials since it allows your material to breathe and reduces the chance of bacterial and germ damage to it.

Once all of the equipment is packed up, the next part to consider is the proper storage. Depending on the space you have, you may want to use bins for storage and label each bin with accordance to the sports equipment that’s inside. You may also consider storing the items you know will be used immediately once it’s warmer outside towards the front and items that are less important towards the back. Regardless of the way you want to store and organize, it’s important that you ensure the equipment is easily accessible. This is because once spring arrives, you’ll want to make sure that the equipment you want to use is readily available. 

Ultimately when it comes to storing your athletic equipment for the winter, it’s important to remember three things: keep it organized, keep it breathable, and keep it accessible.

 

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This article was written by CADdetails.com, the leading provider of manufacturer-specific building product information, high-quality CAD drawings, 3D models, BIM files, and projects. You can view First Teams’ profile on CADdetails.com here. Also check out CADdetails’ design blog Design Ideas for the Built World blog which aims to inspire ideas for design professionals.