Xenith Shadow XR, The Most Comfortable Football Helmet in the Game

All Xenith football helmets feature a unique Adaptive Fit System that has been part of our helmet design from the very beginning. The system, featuring an Internal Shock Matrix and Integrated Chinstrap, provides a custom fit for every player who wears our helmet. No matter their hair style or head shape, the Internal Shock Matrix conforms to the athlete’s head when they tighten the lower chinstrap.

A Revolutionary Approach to Football Helmet Technology

This technology is present in all our helmets, but Shadow XR specifically features an Internal Shock Matrix with 21 touchpoints that uniformly support the head and jaw. This Adaptive Fit System allows us to offer the most even, comfortable fit of any helmet brand without hot spots or pressure points to distract you from playing your best.  

Quantifying the 'Most Comfortable' Helmet in Football

To start, our engineering team set out to understand subjective feedback regarding comfort using an advanced pressure cap with 502 sensors. Volunteers with different head shapes and sizes wore the stretchable pressure cap under various helmets. Our engineering team found that they could correlate a comfort threshold to a certain amount of pressure exerted by the helmet on the head.

Too tight is uncomfortable. Too loose isn’t safe. The sweet spot is even pressure to ensure a snug, secure fit, without exerting too much pressure on the head.

We then compared the on-head pressure of our Shadow XR Varsity helmet against a top-performing competitor helmet using the stretchable pressure cap.

The sensors in the cap produce a flat pressure map that we formed to a human head for easy visualization. Using our pressure-to-comfort data as a guide, we can look at the pressure maps and see where pressure goes beyond secure fit into the range of discomfort.

The competitor map shows yellow zones where the pressure goes past the comfort threshold. The red spots inside the yellow zones at the back and forehead go further beyond the comfort threshold and show definite discomfort points with the potential to cause irritation.

By comparison, you’ll notice that the Xenith Shadow XR pressure map shows very little yellow and no red. That is because the Adaptive Fit System, present in all Xenith helmets, allows the athlete to snug the Internal Shock Matrix to their head for optimal, uniform pressure with no hot spots or pressure points. With its RHEON™ cells and integrated RHEON™ jaw shocks, Xenith Shadow XR is the most comfortable, secure fitting helmet every time you tighten your chinstrap.

Learn more about the Xenith Shadow XR football helmet here.

Shop all Xenith football helmets here.