The Ice Doesn't Care: elbows

Monday, November 28, 2011

Hips, Knees, and Elbows--Part III The Elbow

This took a month to heal. You can't really see the green
skin in this photo.

The first skating protection I adopted were elbow pads. Here's a picture of the reason why. I was doing figure 8's and abruptly fell off an outside edge directly onto my elbow.

Although it's unlikely that you can break your elbow, even a light fall onto the joint can be excruciating.

I tooled around the usual sports stores and finally came up with the skateboarding pads below. I wore these for a year. In fact there's a lot of variety of these at Amazon. They all look equally effective.

I got stares when I wore these.

Then one day I'd had enough. These things took up too much space in my boot bag, and I hadn't fallen on my elbow in a year. I gave my set to someone's son, And started skating with bare elbows.

I know. You're thinking: She fell again. Nope, sorry, I've not fallen on my elbows since. But that memory of that fall stayed with me.

So I was buying knee pads at the Skating Safe site, and I came across these molded elbow pads.

Drool. I love these.

Faster than greased lightning I added a pair to my order. They are designed not to show under a costume in competition. (Skating safe also has a less expensive square elbow pad that works very well. I think it would be hard to see under a costume's sleeves if they were loose.)

Rather than wearing the retention sleeve the company provides, I wear biker's arm warmers to hold the elbow pads in place. I like the arm warmers, since you can wear them instead of a jacket.

The only problem with these is that they are friggin' expensive. I've had jewelry that cost less than these. I'm on my second pair because, I once had cash, a cell phone, and a Flip camera in my skate bag, but someone stole a pair of these, leaving the rest behind. I guess they figured I wouldn't call the cops over a pair of elbow pads.