Since the creation of the Leatt brace there have been a number of rumours suggesting that wearing a neck brace can actually cause other injuries, or simply cause you to have a spinal cord injury in a different place. At MXstore we are here purely to state the facts, we obtain all of our research on information supplied by Leatt seeing as they have a team of medical professionals working for them and their products are European CE certified as Personal Protective Equipment.

Myth #1 – A Leatt brace can break your collar bone:

A very believable myth and in some cases plausible as when fitted incorrectly a neck brace could hit your collar bone during a crash, but a correctly fitted brace does not sit anywhere near your collarbones as the brace is manufactured with collarbone relief areas to prevent contact in this area.

Fact:
If you look at the data which Leatt are constantly collecting regarding injuries in the sport well over 90% of collarbones break outwards which is caused from crashing with an outstretched arm, a helmet rim coming in contact with the collarbone or landing on your shoulder forcing it back.

The amount of collarbones breaking inwards has not significantly changed even since the introduction of neck braces and you are 50 times more likely to fracture your collarbone riding MX or SX than having a spinal injury.

Myth #2 – The thoracic strut can injure your spine lower down your back:

There have been rumours circulating of riders crashing wearing a neck brace and the thoracic piece pushing into the rider’s spine causing injuries lower down the rider’s spine.

Fact:
The thoracic strut of the Leatt brace has load dispersion points which transfer force to the top shoulder muscles and not the spine itself.
The thoracic strut has also undergone superior rear breakaway strep testing and is designed to break away around 30 times less than the level of pressure it takes to fracture vertebrae so the possibility of this causing injury is minimal.

Statistics have shown that the most common spinal injury (without neck braces being worn) is the mid to lower Thoracic region as this is where the back curves/ flexes the most, the fact that the Thoracic strut of a Leatt brace rests in this region is irrelevant and testing has shown that the strut actually helps prevent excessive “buckling forces” of the most curved portion of the thoracic spine.

The fact is that even with a neck brace fitted spinal injuries can occur, just as brain injuries can still occur even with the most expensive helmets on the market.