The Problem with Chest Protectors: Update
Updated: 7 days ago
Content note: discussion of breasts, bras, body insecurity and gender dysmorphia.
Last year, I published a blog post titled “The Problem with Chest Protectors.” In this post, I described the current state of chest protection in Modern Olympic Fencing, asked for input via a survey, and talked about the possibility of getting better options for chest protectors in the future.
A lot has happened since then! We got hundreds of responses to the survey, and I learned a lot about what you’ve done to modify your chest protectors and what problems you have or have seen. And occasionally I will get tagged in a post on Reddit or elsewhere and asked about what’s happening with the project, or pointed to a protector from another sport.
The problem with chest protectors is one that affects a lot of people in our sport, and one that will not be easily solved. But I wanted to consolidate everything I’ve learned in the last year and a half to one place, and to share the State of the Chest Protector with y’all.
Survey Results
At the time of this writing, the survey has received over 300 responses from fencers around the world. One of the things I learned was that I shouldn’t have made the survey so US-centric!
While most of the respondents were women, we also received input from men and nonbinary fencers. Respondents included fencers, coaches, parents and club owners, and many filled more than one role. Just under 40% of respondents always or sometimes wear foil padding, which means that any new product would need to include padding and seek out that SEMI designation. As for the type of chest protector, 77% wear the shaped style, 18% wear flat, and 9% wear the disc style protectors. And most of the respondents agreed - they don’t like what they’re wearing now.
In the picture above, where 1 was Strongly Disagree and 5 was Strongly Agree, the majority of respondents disagreed with the statement and only 19% said they liked their chest protector. Here are some of the responses when we asked “What do you like and/or dislike about your current chest protector?”
I am a small woman. The protector is wider than me and the stick-on padding sticks out even farther. Edges of the protector dig into my ribs and fit awkwardly under my jacket.
I don't actually feel hits to the chest protector, but I often get hit above the border (on the clavicle, upper chest etc) so it feels like it just doesn't do much. Also, it doesn't really fit my body very well.
I always wear a sports bra when fencing, giving me more of a uniboob than two separate breasts. The chest protector fits weirdly and it's like the people who made it think that women fence in push up bras.
I'm AFAB (assigned female at birth) but non-binary. The shaped one doesn't fit right and gives me dysphoria. The flat one presses down too much and is uncomfortable to wear. Neither one works particularly well.
Doesn't fit. I'm 34F but otherwise petite. It lays on top of my chest, large gap below, and sides go beyond my torso. You can see the edges through the jacket; it fits so poorly. My breasts don't go inside the "cups." Plus I wear a sports bra, which doesn't separate breasts anyway. But it doesn't dig in my skin like other models, and it flexes enough that it does its job.
It's bigger than I am (next size down is too small) -- wearing it actually increases my target area.
Next we asked if people had modified their chest protectors. About 40% of those who had modified their protector said they had replaced the straps, many with the more-adjustable straps sold by Radical Fencing. Many others said they had used a heat gun to try to reshape some parts of their protectors. Some of the other changes we heard about included:
I put some yoga padding at the top of my chest to protect breast tissue and my chest.
Removed sections of the underarm with scissors.
Used a heat gun to soften the plastic so I could get it to wrap around my body better (always sticks out and rubs me and wears holes in my jackets over time). Changed the straps from elastic to actual sports bra straps. Added a memory cooling gel pad on the inside of the plate (cut it from a cheap pillow bought on amazon).
I added an elastic extension on the back so it would go around me.
Cut the protector down the middle (sternum) and inserted a plastic plate in between to better fit my actual chest shape. Taped it all together to make it a solid piece again. But I wear a “real” unmodified one at tournaments to pass inspection.
Many fencers know that beyond the physical discomfort, the pronounced boob shape of chest protectors can lead to a lot of awkward moments in the club. Here are some responses we heard to the question “Have you seen or heard about interpersonal issues between fencers at your club that have some connection to chest protectors?”
I have heard teen boys laughing about the chest protectors the girls have to wear. We immediately stopped them. But there is obvious discomfort for many of the girls to put them on in public.
Yes. It brings up a lot more talk of breasts because of the overly shaped nature of a women's chest protector. Women I've talked with have expressed being uncomfortable about unzipping their jacket between bouts because of this.
Yes - like many aspects of being a woman in the sport, being mocked for having a larger chest protector/jokes that they are still too small are commonplace. Eyes of women fencers everywhere are rolling - the sexualization that we face just trying to protect our bodies from harm hasn't changed in the 20+ yrs in this sport. Let's stop pretending this has changed and do something about it.
Our final question asked for further comments, questions and concerns. A few people expressed their concerns that a new and improved chest protector design might cost more, and therefore place an even higher cost burden on female fencers relative to male fencers. Others pointed out how difficult it is to get a chest protector to fit their particular body type, whether that be a wide torso with small breasts or a small torso with large breasts. And one person chimed in with this absolutely enraging anecdote:
I watched a ref make a 13 year old girl change to a molded chest protector from a flat one mid-competition. She had to unzip on strip to change it out. He seemed to believe that the moulded ones were required for women and girls. She did not need it and was literally a child. If I was that girl at that age, I would have never gone back to fencing. So a new chest protector is cool, but some education and/or standardization about what's actually required would be a lot in the interim.
Referees and coaches take note: the rules require a rigid chest protector but they do not mandate a particular style! Which brings us to the next point: more alternatives to the chest protector found outside of sport fencing.
HEMA Chest Protectors
One of the things I was surprised to learn is how much innovation is going on in HEMA when it comes to chest protectors. HEMA stands for Historical European Martial Arts, and refers to a collection of various fighting styles from Europe in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, including longsword, rapier and dagger, and more. Since the rules in HEMA are less specific than ours in Olympic fencing, and because HEMA practitioners are generally more interested in historical armor as well as historical weapons, they have come up with several variations on the chest protector that solve some of the chest protector problems, but not all.
One thing to note is that most HEMA practitioners are solving some different problems with their protection than we are solving in sport fencing. Many of their weapons are two-handed, and they need a greater range of motion in both shoulders than we do. Their weapons are also generally heavier and less flexible, which means that many of the hits can be harder. HEMA gear is thicker and heavier, as they generally find it is worthwhile to sacrifice some breathability in return for greater protection.
One option available in HEMA is the Mac Armour breastplate. Modeled on historical breastplates, there are three versions: the one pictured, which includes movable armholes to allow for greater freedom of movement; another in the same shape but without the moveable arm plates; and a longer and less curved version aimed at male bodies. The v-shaped blade catcher is optional, and would definitely not work for sport fencing. The greatest disadvantage to this protector is that it only comes in one size. Because of its shape and moveable underarm guards it fits more bodies than one size of the style we’re used to, but if your ribcage is much larger or smaller than the width of the protector you have no size alternatives. The style without the arm guards is probably closest to what we would need for sport fencing, but without multiple sizing options it is probably only workable for a handful of people.
Another product that several people linked to - including the creator, Veronica, herself - was the Cryptid Combat Wear chest protector. This protector is a vest with Velcro adjustments at the shoulders and sides, made of heavy cotton and impact-resistant foam, with a plastic plate secured to the top. The beauty of this product is that it is so adjustable, which means that as long as the plastic plate fits the depth you need, you’re able to make the rest of it fit a wide range of bodies - the XL sizing on the website boasts a chest circumference range of 45”-61”. The plastic chest plate also has much less depth between the breasts, which means it would sit better on a body wearing a sports bra.
While the design is clever, there are a few problems with using it for sport fencing. For one, the plastic protector covers much less of the underarm area than we are used to. For another, the straps securing the plastic to the fabric could potentially catch a point, and would need to be streamlined more for use in sport fencing. And finally, the bulk of the vest might be helpful in HEMA, where they are hit with much heavier and less flexible weapons than we use, but it would likely be much hotter and less comfortable under the more fitted and thinner jackets we use in sport fencing.
I have also found a few tutorials for making your own chest protector out of moldable plastic, such as the Boob Shield. These options could be used in epee or saber, but without the FIE padding they could not be used for foil. And this is one of the primary problems with borrowing chest protectors from other sports - without the FIE SEMI mark, the protectors aren’t usable by foilists.
More on fat necrosis
Recently, the medical history podcast Sawbones answered a question (that I posed) about chest protectors and fat necrosis. My question was this: chest protectors are required for people with breasts, but people without breasts also have breast tissue, so are people with breasts more susceptible to fat necrosis? Dr. Sydnee McElroy responded that fat necrosis happens when you combine fat cells and trauma - some of the fat cells die and it can cause a lump or a dimple. It’s more likely to happen when there’s a high concentration of fat tissue, which means it can happen on breasts but also on thighs, butts, and anywhere else a concentration of fat tissue gets hit hard enough.
This leads me to believe that the requirement for chest protectors for women of all sizes, and a lack of requirement for men of any sizes, is based more on comfort and paternalism than on avoiding this specific medical possibility. That is to say, the requirement for chest protectors, which was almost certainly written by a mostly-male group of officials, has more to do with men trying to protect “delicate” women fencers than with any actual medical harm we might encounter. I have forgotten my chest protector on an occasion or two and I can attest that it is less comfortable to get hit on the breast than other places such as the stomach, legs or arms (though I’d still choose a boob hit over a collarbone or kneecap hit). But I know other women who would rather get hit in the chest occasionally than wear an ill-fitting, uncomfortable chest protector.
I’ll add that I have heard from several women who fenced for years during the hubcap era, where the edges of the breast were not covered by the plastic/metal protector. They told me that their mammograms are more complicated and nerve-wracking because of damage that came from hits just outside of the protected area. So the chest protector does protect the breasts from long-term damage that might create false positives for necessary cancer screenings.
What’s Next
My goal with the post was to present the problem, raise awareness about how widespread the problem was, and hopefully get some movement towards a better solution for breast protection in the future. “Someone should do something about this!” was sort of the undercurrent of the post. It turns out that after you write a post like that and it gets as much attention as mine did, people expect YOU to do something about it.
In the months since the post was published, I have made contact with vendors and am working on a prototype that I believe solves a lot of the problems with the current design. And... that’s all I can say about that. The process of designing a new piece of protective equipment is neither simple nor straightforward, especially when you have a lot of other demands on your time and no experience in equipment design. Suffice it to say that I know the demand is out there, I am working on something, and I hope to be able to bring a new chest protector to market before we have all gotten too old to fence.
In the meantime, fencers looking to modify their existing chest protectors should keep in mind that for epee and saber the only restriction is that “rigid” chest protection must be worn. In foil, you have to have a foam overlayer with the FIE SEMI mark on the center. In all weapons you can adjust your store bought protector by molding it with heat and modifying the straps. To paraphrase one respondent, let’s challenge our ingenuity to find ways to make it accommodate our bodies better.
Author Liz Mayerich is an owner and coach at Houston Sword Sports in Houston, Texas, and co-chair of the WFencing Allies Committee. She is an epee fencer, a USFCA prévôt in epee and foil, and occasionally dabbles in saber coaching. She is also the chair of the Gulf Coast Division of USA Fencing and the mother, wife, and daughter of fencers.