Introduction
It was not so long ago that the most common Sports Floor in the world was concrete (it still is a reallity in some parts of the world). The reasons were simple:
- Easy to do
- Low maintenance costs
- Could be painted in any colour
- Etc…
From this starting point, people started to call a Sports Floor to every surface where Sports were played on and this remains until our days. But is this the best Sports Floor?? Is this a good Sports Floor??
In the quest of innovation of this important element of the game, different types of materials were used, either to be glued or apllied on this concrete and a lot of development on this issue was done until our days.
Biomechanical studies have proven the importance of the Sports Floor for the protection and even performance of players in their Sports and the numbers comparison between injuries on new and old Sports Floors are clear.
Sports is today a huge business in several aspects, and the importance of protecting the players from injuries and physical wear is something that today is considered on the highest competition has an basic requirement.
There is no logic on investing tons of money on medical equipment for high competition teams, when you remain with a Sports Floor that helps your medical Department to be full the entire season.
In a recent past some countries in the world developed their own standards, concerning Sports Floors. The problem on that time was that the level of results for demanded for each country could not match the results required for other country. In 2003 the most important countries standards joined and resulted on EN14904 wich is the reference for our days.
This European standard has their tests splited in principal vectors like Safety, Durability and Performance.
What is the difference of a Sports Floor for a Sports Floor System??
Sports Floor is considered any hard surface where you can play any Sport.
A Sports Floor System is developed having in mind the elastic base with energy restitution, the middle layer that should distribute the load, be resistant and at the same time allow the system to make use of the elastic layer for the user, and the upper layer that should combine resistance to performance (level o grip). The combination of this layers result on a Sports Flooring System that should work perfectly together.
This combination provides properties of biomechanical protection to all the athletes using the Sports Floor that will decrease the level of injuries.
Confort is also present in every step you take on this Sports Flooring System for every Sport you play