Crash pads for bottom of butt

[Janie]

I know the topic of crash pads have been brought up many times, and despite the cheaper choice of DIY crash pads, I've decided that I want to get the UltraCrash hip pads. However, judging from the diagram on the website and what everyone says here, the pads seem to only be for covering the Iliac crest and the Trochanter. Last time I fell a lot, it was on the Trochanter, so it's good that the pads cover there. But when I fell a lot practicing jumps yesterday, it was on the bottom of my butt, that place where you sit on (so sitting down hurts right now). I don't know what the name of the bone there is, but it's the part where if you're standing, the butt flesh covers it pretty well, but when you sit down (or fall down), the flesh is stretched thin and you hit the bone. I looked at other various pads/padded shorts, and they all seem to be for the side. Does anyone have one for the bottom?

Also, I'm debating whether or not to get the tailbone pad. I've never fallen on it before (knock on wood), but it seems like a really serious place to fall on and not have a pad.

[RosiePosie.iskates]

A girl at my rink had this same problem. She never found any to buy that covered the tail bone, but her mom made her some. She took one of the foam pads out of one of the sets she bought that covered her hips, and sewed it to where she wanted it on a pair of skating shorts. Then she covered it up with some black fabric, and it looked as good as store bought! She just wore the shorts over her practice tights, and they worked out fine. 

[hopskipjump]

These look like they will do it...  http://www.pbkiteboarding.com/Kiteboarding_Snowkiting_Equipment/MBS_Mountainboards_Boards/MBS_Landboarding_Snowkiting_Hip_Pads_Butt_Pads_Canada.html

[jjane45]

My DIY 1/4" "tailbone" gel pad is nearly the size of a skatingsafe hip pad. I remember a recent hard fall on the rear, and the thickness of my tailbone pad shielded most of the impact even though physically not covering that part.

She took one of the foam pads out of one of the sets she bought that covered her hips, and sewed it to where she wanted it on a pair of skating shorts. Then she covered it up with some black fabric, and it looked as good as store bought! She just wore the shorts over her practice tights, and they worked out fine. 

Excellent idea!

BTW, just visited Rainbo's body protection section and saw Se_Ku training shorts / competition briefs for the first time. I won't pay $165/$183 for something so easy to DIY though.

[platyhiker]

I, too, am interested in finding out about the options for padding the bottom area of the butt.  (I had a hard fall there this week and it's still a bit sore five days later.)

I've been a bit surprised that there are individual pad sold for hips, knees, and tailbones, there don't seem to be any specifically designed for protecting the bones in the lower butt.  (I think what I landed hard on was a protrusion of the femur, I don't know what it's called.  Sit up straight in a chair and put your hand under of your butt where bone is transferring weight to the chair - that's what I want to protect.)

Is putting a hip pad (such as a Skating Safe one) on the lower butt likely to work well?  i.e. is the shape of the hip pad going to work with the shape of the butt?  Would a hip pad stay in place with just yoga pants over it? or would I need to get tighter, compression-type shorts to keep a butt pad in place?

[sampaguita]

Waxel pads that cover the entire butt are available, but you can only find them from the official Waxel Pad website. Maybe that will work for you. As far as I know, SkatingSafe doesn't offer crash pads for the entire derriere.

[irenar5]

Bubble wrap (with the small bubbles) folded a few times is easy and inexpensive.   You can take it out and replace rinkside. 

[jjane45]

Is putting a hip pad (such as a Skating Safe one) on the lower butt likely to work well?  i.e. is the shape of the hip pad going to work with the shape of the butt?  Would a hip pad stay in place with just yoga pants over it? or would I need to get tighter, compression-type shorts to keep a butt pad in place?

I wear polyester / spandex capri pants (thanks to AgnesNitt's tip) under skating pants to hold the knee pads, hip pads, and tailbone pad in place. I'd guess it's hard to fix the padding EXACTLY at the spot OP mentioned, even with compression shorts. Maybe some sewing would be the best?

[TreSk8sAZ]

Is putting a hip pad (such as a Skating Safe one) on the lower butt likely to work well?  i.e. is the shape of the hip pad going to work with the shape of the butt?  Would a hip pad stay in place with just yoga pants over it? or would I need to get tighter, compression-type shorts to keep a butt pad in place?

I use a skating safe hip pad and simply put it under my tights and pant (so directlyon my skins. It stays just fine. I like that I can move it around then to wherever I am falling most on that day. Because it's gel, it conforms to whatever spot I put it.

[platyhiker]

Thanks jjane45 and TreSk8sAZ - that's just what I wanted to know.  I am now looking into purchasing the Skating Safe hip pads - I want to protect myself from such falls in the future.  (The sad thing, is that I fell when simply practicing three turns - that darn left inside one is still lousy.)

Looking at the Skating Safe web site, I see the hip pads are available in both Large (7 3/8 x 9 1/8 x 5/16) and Medium (6 3/8 x 8 1/8 x 5/16) sizes, but there is no information on how to select the size.  Anybody have a size recommendation for me?  I'm 5'6", 135 pounds and wear size 8 pants.  For those that have and use the Skating Safe pads, do you tend to wish they were smaller or larger than what you have?

irenar5 - you are right that bubble wrap is cheap and effective, but I'm too self conscious to handle that large of a bulge in my pants.  The unobtrusive appearance of the Skating Safe pads really appeal to me.  A pad won't do me any good if I'm not wearing it.

[jjane45]

My gel pads were made of akton pads following the larger size from skatingsafe, best skating investment ever   Once I figured out the most comfortable way of keeping each pad in place, it works like charm.

PS: note I added more details to my previous reply.

[Sk8tmum]

Tailbone pad: amazing.  Cushions falls very well.

Hip pad Size:  my adult size kids use the large ones. 

There was actually a skater at the Skate Canada International today in Senior Ladies who had very heavy and obvious pads on her hips due to hard falls. Her coach voted for protecting the skater over aesthetics. 

[jjane45]

There was actually a skater at the Skate Canada International today in Senior Ladies who had very heavy and obvious pads on her hips due to hard falls. Her coach voted for protecting the skater over aesthetics.

Ksenia Makarova? I remember the report but can barely notice anything.

Multiple people pointed out on FSU that Ross Miner used protective gear during official practices too, I wish it's more commonplace and does not stir discussions.

[Janie]

Thank you to everyone's replies! You were all very helpful!

These look like they will do it...  http://www.pbkiteboarding.com/Kiteboarding_Snowkiting_Equipment/MBS_Mountainboards_Boards/MBS_Landboarding_Snowkiting_Hip_Pads_Butt_Pads_Canada.html

Bubble wrap (with the small bubbles) folded a few times is easy and inexpensive.   You can take it out and replace rinkside. 

I'm afraid I have to admit that I'm vain. I only managed to convince myself to wear kneepads after getting an extremely bad bruise. I don't really want to wear anything bulky around the hips. I'll just stick with the SkatingSafe ones!

I use a skating safe hip pad and simply put it under my tights and pant (so directlyon my skins. It stays just fine. I like that I can move it around then to wherever I am falling most on that day. Because it's gel, it conforms to whatever spot I put it.

Sorry if this is getting kind of personal... but is it even under your undies? (to be directly on your skin) I guess it only "sticks" when it's in direct contact with the skin? I currently wear Chloe Noel-like pants, but if that can't hold up the pads, I can wear tights underneath too. Hopefully that will be enough.


I'm curious... does no one else besides platyhiker and me fall on that spot often?

I think I'll get the tailbone pad and the two sides of the hip pads, and if I'm falling often on the bottom that day (or if I'm already hurting like now), I'll move one of the hip pads to the lower butt like platyhiker mentioned. Now trying to decide if I want the large or medium as well - seems like the large one can protect a larger surface area, so why not?

[TreSk8sAZ]

Sorry if this is getting kind of personal... but is it even under your undies? (to be directly on your skin) I guess it only "sticks" when it's in direct contact with the skin? I currently wear Chloe Noel-like pants, but if that can't hold up the pads, I can wear tights underneath too.

Yes, I put them directly against my skin. I wear tights under my pants all of the time (so no underwear under the tights as that's built in to tights/what tights are for). But I would think you could put them under any tighter skating pants and as long as at least part is touching the skin it should stick enough to hold.

[sarahonice]

I wear the tailbone gel pad every time I skate. Knee pads I might skip a day if I forget, but like you said the tailbone is worth protecting even if you don't fall on it much. The one time it protects me is worth the bother of wearing them many times without needing them.

I don't wear the gel pad directly on my skin (the sweating would bother me) so I just took a pair of black boy shorts and sewed a little "pocket" on the inside using scrap fabric. The pad doesn't slide around and I wear my homemade shorts over underwear, under skating pants. When I wore it under tights, it did move a bit and I had to reposition them every so often. I also have the hip crash pad, which is larger and slightly thicker than the tailbone pad. I could see wearing that to protect the lower butt area you're talking about, if you just sew that inner pocket to fit where you want it to stay.

[hopskipjump]

When dd rarely falls on her butt, if she does, she slides.  She is more apt to land on a hip from jumping.

[jjane45]

I don't wear the gel pad directly on my skin (the sweating would bother me)... I wear my homemade shorts over underwear, under skating pants.

Question: what do you do with the knee pads?

[platyhiker]

I don't know what sarahonice does,  but I found this informative from Sk8Dreams, from a thread from Feb 2011:

"I also love my SkatingSafe gel knee pads.  I orient them so the narrower end is up, smear a drop or two of water on the surface that will touch my skin, and place them under my tights.  They "settle" quickly, and then never budge.  Occasionally, I'll have to reach down and pull one up or make an adjustment, but that's always in the first 10 minutes, before I've left the house.  If your pads are big enough to cover your knees in that orientation, you won't need the retention sleeves to hold them in place."

(Full thread is at: http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=1193.msg10356#msg10356 )

[sarahonice]

Question: what do you do with the knee pads?

I wrap my knees.  Initially I wasted money buying the retention sleeves that SkatingSafe sells. I'm not overweight (size 6 clothing) but those must be made for kids' skinny legs, because they practically cut off circulation in mine. After some experimentation, I found that the wide Ace bandages (the ones that are about 5-6 inches wide) work best. I just bought one and cut it in half because they don't need to be very long (that makes the wrapping bulky), and they stay put.

I may have to try the trick listed above, though under tights I feel like they slip. I hate adjusting mid-session.

[aussieskater]

I'm not sure what I was doing wrong, but I found that if I placed the skating safe knee pads next to the skin under tights, they slid down, and they also slid if I wore them between two layers of tights (maybe my practice tights are just too old to hold them steady!).

I agree with jjane that the largest size skating safe retainers are made for 6 year old sticks, so I decided to DIY some retainers.  I wanted tan or flesh, rather than cream, so I could wear them under tights with a skirt for practice and not have them stand out toooo much.  It took a bit of hunting to find tan tube bandage in the width I need to allow space for the pad, but these guys carried it and would ship to me (Aussie seller) - http://www.bandagesdirect.com/contents/en-us/d1.html.  I'd think it would be easily available elsewhere.

I cut 1 metre of extra wide (size G? H?) bandage in half, to yield 50cm for each knee.  I pull the bandage on so the upper edge is approx where I want the top of the knee pad, (the remaining bandage is down my calf).  Then place the kneepad in position and holding it with one hand, fold the lower edge of the bandage up and over the pad.  Holds perfectly, never moves, doesn't bind the back of the knee so no excuses to the coach about not being able to bend them, and very little "visible retainer line"  . Bonus is that the bandage is cheaper than the branded retainers.

[Sk8tmum]

Okay, my kid wears the hip pads over basic cotton jockeys, and under underarmour frosty tights.  They don't move. The knee pads do go right on the skin, but, they don't move either - the frosty tights hold them secure, particularly after the fast stroking warmup generates a bit of sweat under the tights

If you're worried about hygiene, of the nice things about them is that they're easy to disinfect/clean with a quick wipedown with a cleaner ... way better than the ones that are material that you really can't disinfect properly (a thorough enough washing with a washingmachine would likely wreck them due to the level of heat, soap, and agitation needed!)

[Janie]

Okay thanks again everyone!

I'll have the pads under my tights for now, and if they move, I'll sew little pockets onto shorts to put them in. Good thing I don't have to worry about knee pads, since I play volleyball and already have volleyball knee pads!

[platyhiker]

Thank you everyone for all your useful information.  (And thank you to Janie for sharing your thread.)   

For anybody thinking of getting the Skating Safe pads, the best price I found was $34.99 per hip pad (or knee pad) at jenskates.com.  If you order $100 or more, shipping is free.  (Caveat:  You have to pay attention to select the free shipping option at the final stage of the check out.)

Thanks again everybody.  It is great to be part of such a helpful community. 

[AgnesNitt]

I use capri tights under my skating pants to hold up my knee pads. I've used shape wear from Target, and one size fits all from 5 And Below.As long as the capris are reasonably form fitting, it doesn't matter alhtough the shapewear from Target is my favorite--it does not lose its stretch. I just pull on the capri tights, then slide the knee pads in and sort of tuck the hem of the capris under the pads. Never had one budge.