I don't wear pads for figure skating since the part I most often fall on is already naturally extremely well padded.

However, when I play hockey I wear full gear and if I'm coaching anyone above Mites I at least wear shinpads (since the time I got on the ice to help out with PeeWees and the head coach turned to me and said, "Let's play coaches against the kids," and when I looked around only two kids were my height or shorter.).

If I ever get as far as a jump where I fall on something other than my keister I would probably wear a pad or my hockey shorts.

__________________
You miss 100% of the shots you never take.--Wayne Gretzky

No matter how much you practice, the time will come when you cannot control your fall. It could be because of an obstacle on the ice, another skater, or just losing your balance suddenly. I once saw a high level skater & coach fall while standing still. She had to be carted off in an ambulance.

I use the Skating Safe knee pads every day, and they don't slip at all. I do not wear them horizontally as directed, but instead, put the point at the top. This gives more surface area to the upper and lower leg so they stick better. I also apply just a drop or two of water first, and that also helps them stick. You might have to buy a bigger than recommended size to wear them with that orientation and still get full coverage, but that doesn't affect the price (already sky high), and it really works. They are not visible under my black skating pants, but I'm sure there would be at least an outline visible in the tights if I wore a dress.

__________________

I just saw this. I'm not sure what bike knee pads are, but I'll look into them. Sounds like a great suggestion. Thank you!

They look a lot like the volleyball pads but are only about half as thick. I wore them for years before I finally bit the bullet and shelled out $$$ for the SkatingSafe gel knee pads. I took my first real impact on the SkatingSafe pads today, and am happy to report that I didn't feel any pain at all and have no bruising or pain many hours later.

__________________

Thanks for being our guinea pig!

Glad you weren't hurt!

__________________
http://www.swizzlesandtwizzles.blogspot.com

I wore padding as long as I can remember. It actually helped me learn how to fall in a safer manner. It also protected bruises and broken bones. What I would do was once I felt secure on a jump I would do all the jumps up to that one with padding and then put the padding in before I was to work on the one that was not consistent. Sometimes I would fall on the prior ones, but it was a way to not be dependent on the padding. I used foam and soccer knee pads and an under padding for a football shoulder pad. These all worked well and I could slide them in between skating pants and tights and they would just need a little adjustment. I did look like J Lo though!
-K
www.cutiepet2tie.com

I finally bought the Skating Safe pads, and love them! Do they last longer if you keep them in the plastic containers they came in? Can they stay in the car between uses?

__________________
http://www.swizzlesandtwizzles.blogspot.com

I was BFF with my crash pads, but secondary coach ended the friendship!!! I think I'll put BFF on the poll just to piss her and primary coach off!!! (And b/c I totally disagree with her on pads on the hip and tailbone at least!!! ) (Pssst... I have the palm pad under my gloves though... )

SkatingSafe is the way to go if you are going with pads. Do NOT go the volleyball pads or the foam pads. They will slide and get pushed off on impact at times!!! (Guess how *I* know???) If you can't afford the SkatingSafe pads, there's some sort of pad (can't remember the name) that you can buy and cut to your size and shape... and it's supposedly SkatingSafe made their pads from this material too.

dbny: Glad you like the SkatingSafe pads. (Hey! I thought you were going SKIING????)

__________________
Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

My coach is fine with pads. She told me that she used to wear as many as three sets at a time when learning some of her advanced jumps. I love the skating safe ones - money well spent, I think, especially as they have saved my already-iffy knees from some nasty falls.

I don't wear pads for figure skating, mostly because the easily obtainable kind make me feel too stiff and I am too disorganized to buy any online, but I do advise my adult skaters to wear anything that makes them feel comfortable, including a helmet. I do wear a helmet for anything to do with hockey, and shinguards if I'm refereeing or coaching PeeWees. I didn't wear them to referee until I did a Mites game (6, 7, and 8 year old) because most of them can't lift the puck, let alone hit it hard enough to hurt someone, but then I did a couple face offs where the kids starting laying about them with sticks BEFORE I actually dropped the puck. Guess whose knees were right at stick height for these little tiny kids? OUCH!

__________________
You miss 100% of the shots you never take.--Wayne Gretzky

I have been wearing my Skating Safe gel kneepads religiously since I bought them. Today, I had my first major fall with them on ... back crossovers, the clink of doom and then - bam - down hard on both knees. No pain, in fact, it felt like sitting down on a mattress. I love my kneepads!

__________________
http://www.swizzlesandtwizzles.blogspot.com

I say somewhere between "friend" and "bff." I think they're only a foe if they make it so you can't move well/annoy you so that you can't focus on skating, or if you develop a psychological mindset that if you don't wear them, you're going to die (which is what I assume is meant by "can't skate without them").

I wear knee and elbow pads. They're not too thick (I can't even tell I'm wearing them), but thick enough that they make me feel confident. I started wearing knee pads from the beginning; I've seen my mom's travails with really bad knee arthritis (think almost no cartilage left), with the worst being in a knee she once injured in a car accident in her 20s. I don't want to end up the same way in my 40s/50s and beyond because I hurt my knee(s) skating (I have yet to fall on my knees, but I'm sure the day will come). The elbow pads I added a few weeks ago after a nasty fall that left my elbow so sore it's only just about now stopped hurting (usually I can try to fall gently but that was one of those falls where you're up, then suddenly you're down, and you're not really sure how you got there, so there's no time to try to make it easier). I do tend to fall on my elbows (and bum, but there's already plenty of padding there!) and I counted myself lucky I didn't break or fracture anything, but am not going to take the same chances twice.

Any coach that doesn't like my pads will be told precisely why I wear them, and that if they want me to take them off, they will be prying them off my cold, dead body. They don't have to live with any injuries I may sustain. I do. Possibly for the rest of my life. Therefore, they don't get any say on what I do with my body, as I believe my padding is perfectly reasonable--it's not like I'm wrapping myself in bubble wrap so I can't move.

My pads are the foam kind, already attached with a sleeve to hold them on. I've looked at the gel pads online, but cringed at the cost, and spent about $15 on both my knee and elbow pads at Dunhams instead.


What about that stuff you buy to put under rugs so they don't slip? Attach a bit of that at the back?

I wear inline skating wrist guards and skatingsafe 'invisible' elbow pads. Since I was working on my 'kick' in the change edge serpentine and was afraid of falling backwards I stuffed the gel knee pads into a hat and wore that instead of a helmet (this was called by friends as the 'pad in the hat')
Anyway, when I fell and broke my ankle, at least when I stuck out my hand to break the fallI didn't get a broken wrist at the same time, so I feel positive about them. BFF with my pads (Also, you can use the elbow sleeves over the compression bandage on your ankle, to make it less likely to snag on anything).

__________________
Great forum quotes:
On Falling: '...it doesn't matter, it's what you do AFTER you fall that's more important' ISK8NYC

I wear the gel pads religiously - they have saved my knees on hard knee falls more than once - and I wear Assets capri-length shapers by Sara Blakely, under my tights, to hold them in place. $12 at Target.

What works good for me is a bit of 2-sided tape (gap-tape used for holding clothing in place) or making sure I'm wearing my tight under armour. I did convert a pair of bike shorts into pad-holders by stitching some gel-pockets onto them (put shorts on inside out, gently pin some t-shirt fabric where you want the pads to go, insert pads, re-adjust the pins, stitch leaving open space at top to insert/remove pads; this is easier with a buddy but if you don't care if the stitching is even or not you can do it by yourself).

__________________
Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

Until you experience a hard fall with them, it's hard to believe just how good they really are.

Good for you! I've never understood why anyone would let someone else dictate something so important to their own health and well being.

I put off buying the good gel pads until I was able to write it off as a business expense, but looking back at some of the falls I took with the foam pads, I can see that I should have bitten the bullet and done it sooner. I urge you to look past the dollar cost and think in terms of the health cost. Those gel pads are worth their weight in gold.

__________________

I started with the foam pads, but when I "upgraded" to the gel pads I was amazed at how much better they were in several ways: shock aborption was 1,000% better, and the level of comfort was so much better since they tend to move with your body more so than with the foam. Yes, they do cost more but hey, I look at it in a preventative injury cost sort of way!

__________________
Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

Hi

I do wear padded shorts whenever I go for my ice skating lesson and practice. I did not wear them when I first went ice skating back in January of this year. Then I got one bad fall whilst attempting a bunny hop, and hurt my pelvis. That is when I decided to dig out my padded shorts again. They do protect me from falls, i.e. the falls are not so painful when I wear them.

londonicechamp

I will certainly be looking at getting padding when I get onto things like jumps. I do now wear wrist guards following a recent wrist fracture. I suppose I wore the ultimate wrist guard when I skated with londonicechamp a few weeks ago - I still had my arm in a cast

I managed two different fractures in six weeks skating (finger first and then the wrist on the opposite side). Because of that I have a bone density scan on Monday to see if there's a problem that needs to be fixed (other than falling over, that is!).

Sarah