Why Wear a Chinstrap?

Chinstrap safety

The chinstrap is such an essential part of your headgear. It works like a seatbelt to ensure the best fit on your head by keeping your helmet in place during play. When the head is properly fastened in the helmet, it maximizes the protection and lowers the odds of sustaining head trauma. Chinstraps have evolved over the years and are now more customizable than ever!

Soft Cup vs Hard Cup

Usually, a field-use helmet comes with a basic, soft cup chinstrap. These do the job by keeping your head secured, but they’re not as luxurious as a hard cup chinstrap. Hard cup chinstraps provide more comfort with the use of soft foam or gel padding. The polycarbonate shell and padding also provides more shock absorption than a soft cup chinstrap.

Attached at the …?

There are several ways chinstraps are attached to the helmet: buckles, cam-locs, dome screws, and more. Most helmets secure chinstraps using buckles on both the top and bottom straps. The Riddell SpeedFlex and Axiom helmets are the only models that feature the cam-loc and strap-loc mechanisms. These attachment systems cannot be added to any other helmet models due to the holes built into the helmet. If you cut holes in another helmet to fit these systems, they are not approved for safety.

If you don’t want to use the cam-locs on a SpeedFlex, there are adapters that allow you to customize the attachment of the chinstrap. The SportStar Chinstrap Adapters allow for you to replace the bottom attachment with a snap post set so a chinstrap with buckles can be used. The strap-locs on top can be replaced with Snap Posts to use buckles on top as well. If you’re looking for an even more custom look, we have colored Chinstrap Buckles available to further coordinate your gear with your helmet. 

One of the cheapest and more permanent ways to convert a chinstrap is to use Dome Screws. This attachment can be used on the top straps to keep them in place. Although it is not as common as buckles, there are players in the NFL and NCAA that favor this method. 

Get the look

Chinstraps are a great way to upgrade your helmet and coordinate it with your team colors without breaking the bank. A Riddell Hard Cup Chinstrap starts at just $28 to get the look you’re going for or you can get exactly what the pros are wearing and get a SportStar Victory T-Rex Hurricane Chinstrap. Get a look as clean as this ASU Sun Devils Build by opting for a White SportStar Victory T-Rex Hurricane Chinstrap with white buckles and a white facemask!