Orange Archive

Rope mats: safety or comfort?

An informal deep dive on the EVA foam mats we use as flooring at rope events and how an Australian Standard about playgrounds is relevant.

My research questions are…

  1. Would EVA foam mats reduce injury?
  2. How are mats used in sport rated for falls in Australia?
  3. Do EVA foam mats placed under rope suspensions meet those Australian Standards? (Surprising no one: no)

I’ll be upfront, there are so many of factors for how someone is suspended, what position they are in that impacts their ability to break their fall, the person tying them reducing the fall, if the person is swinging, causation of the drop etc. that I’m not going to even begin applying nuance here. I’m not your guy to answer those questions beyond saying avoid falls at all costs and here’s a self indulgent research rabbit hole.

Explanation

Skip to Conclusion if you want the answers.

Did you know there’s a standard that mandates testing of playground surfacing that ensures impact attenuation (absorption of impact) by testing Critical Fall Height (CFH)? Enter AS 4422.

AS 4422 is an Australian Standard for playground surfacing. “It provides specifications, requirements and testing methods to determine the suitability of surfacing materials.” (PISA, 2023). It defines the Critical Fall Height, “which is the maximum height from which a child can fall without sustaining a Severe head injury” (PISA, 2023) and Impact Attenuation, in which the standard sets a G-max value that measures the surface materials shock absorption capacity.

Mat’s used within a playground context are tested by this standard. As an outcome of this we have crash mats and EVA foam mats that have been tested, officially confirmed they meet AS 4422, and are able to state the mat’s Critical Fall Height (CFH) based on testing. If it’s not advertised then don’t assume it’s been tested and meets the standard.

[In simpler words, thank the playground safety standards for why we know what mat’s will save children from Severe head injuries at different heights.]

Within a playground application, if the free height of fall [height between the body and the mat, unobstructed, below them] is above 0.5 meters then the surfacing should be tested in accordance with AS 4422. See the Impact Safety Requirements by Playcheck for a fast breakdown on what is AS 4422.

From an informal research rabbit hole, it seems as though AS 4422 has been applied to padded flooring in a gym, gymnastics, and aerial circus mats to determine the Critical Fall Height of the mats they are using.

Crash mats used for aerial silks

Take the MEMAX Safety Landing Mat for example, it’s Test Certificate showing it meets AS 4422 states it’s Critical Fall Height is 3.37m +/- 0.71m. It uses shock absorbing foam, implements air vents to diffuse energy on impact and stands at a height of 30cm. This is a mat is similar in make (20cm height, similar foam) that X-Pole sells to place under their aerial frame for lyra or silks, which have a maximum height of 3.37 meters.

Diving into EVA foam specifically

EVA foam is a high density foam, you might see jigsaw interlocking EVA foam mats at home gyms or kids play rooms where there’s those thin interlocking foam mats, or at rope events. The most common one’s you’ll see are 10mm, with some rope venues using 20mm. 10mm ones are cheap, easy to buy, easy to put together.

Fall safety rating wise, I’ve found a company that has tested their 4cm (40mm) EVA foam mats and state the mats have a Critical Fall Height standard of 1.6m AS 4422. I’ve been able to find other 40mm EVA foam mats that meet that standard as well. However, a mat being 40mm EVA does not inherently mean it meets AS 4422 (plot relevant to this post).

For 30mm, I was only able to find SMAI’s 30mm EVA mat that claims it has a fall height rating of 1.3m. And then no 20mm EVA mat that I have seen has a Critical Fall Height per AS 4422 testing. In a lot of the descriptions I have seen for 20mm EVA mats they are described as soft flooring, cushioned floor solution, shock absorbing, used in activities where there is less chance for muscle fatigue as well as minimal falling and jumping.

Conclusion

This leads us to the very obvious conclusion, of course the thin (10mm - 20mm EVA foam) mats under you aren’t going to do much if you actually drop. The mats will reduce minor injury to some extent but definitely not a Severe head injury or other major injures, they aren’t rated for that. They would absorb some force, you might bounce a little, they’d definitely reduce abrasions and make it more comfortable to kneel, sit and stand. The thicker they are the better unsurprisingly.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have mats that aren’t safety rated. There are a lot more factors than the mats on that contribute to the risk factor of a fall/drop in rope. In my mind our priority should be, and is, avoiding a fall/drop entirely. We should all learn how to inspect our hard points, ask about the inspection process of the venue owner’s hard points, and use rated gear (carabiners, slings, plates and rings). If it can’t be rated, like jute or natural fibre rope, learn how to care for it, spot concerns that could mean the rope will break, learn harnesses and ways to do upline’s that reduce potential risk. Or in the instance of bamboo, learn how to spot concerns of bamboo. Safety should not be ignored for aesthetics.

The mats are the last line of defence for a situation we should work hard to avoid.

Buy some mats locally!

Looking to buy cheap local 20mm EVA foam mats that are 1m x 1m? Redfit Fitness Equipment sells them for $27 per mat with free shipping (I promise this isn’t sponsored, I’m just in aw a Brisbane company is selling the so cheap with no shipping cost)

Disclaimer

I’m not a professional, if anyone is regarding this realm of things do chime in! For this I’m using the playground surfacing requirements as my frame of reference. This choice was made because aerial circus is the closest comparative thing to rope suspension,  so I used the safety measures of those mats and applied it to rope. However, that erases the impact of how a body in rope affects a person the way in which someone fall’s (increasing injury risk) and the person tying them’s response to break the fall. This started out as a deep dive in June 2024 to help me decide between buying 10mm or 20mm EVA foam mats, 8 hours later I got 20mm, and I returned to this thought today staring at my home set up.

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