Knee pads and chondromalacia.

[Harris]

I developed bad chondromalacia (thinning of the cartilage both on the femoral chondial groove and the backside of the patella (kneecap)) as a late teen. I've had two surgeries to clean up the scar tissue and spurs, which helped, but basically I'm bone on bone, and the pain at times when on lifts can be intense. I suspect a lot of it was caused by wearing heavy duty skateboarder knee pads, which put pressure on the kneecap, pressing it into the chondrial groove of the femur. The reason I suspect this is that if I were kneepads today, my knee pain is two fold that compared to when I go without pads, even if I keep the pads sloppy loose. With today's plastic boots knee pads aren't really necessary like they were in the days of worn-out leathers. My suggestion to anyone who loves their knees is to ditch the pads. Any other long-time telemarkers suffer the same issues?

[Askel]

Sorta. I have a patelar... pateler....that thing where my kneecap doesn't slide in the grove correctly when my muscles get tired and can't hold it in place. Kneepads that apply pressure to my kneecaps aggravate it quite a bit. However, kneepads like the black diamond that don't rest on the knee don't give me any grief.

I actually find I make use of the kneepads more with the heavy plastic gear than my lightweight setup.

[lowangle al]

Sorry about your knee problems guys. I also have problems but my knees are better now than they were 10 or 12 years ago. I not only use knee pads for skiing, I wear them at work too. I finish concrete and have them on for 10 or 12 hous a day and never experienced a problem from them.

My hardshell ski pants have a pocket inside the pant leg and came with fabric pads. I replaced the fabric pads with plastic ones and use the fabric pads in my softshell pants. The softshell pants didn't have pockets but they had a double material in the knees that I was able to cut a slit in the top and slip the fabric pads in there. Wearing them like this there is no pressure on the knee until you bend your leg all the way.

I would suggest sewing a pocket to hold your pads in your pants and also switch to a fabric pad w/o plastic to relieve the pressure. Like you said pads aren't as important now as they were on old style gear. I like them to keep my knees warm as a cut my longjohns off right above the knee because I have a problem with hot feet.

[Harris]

Sorry about your knee problems guys. I also have problems but my knees are better now than they were 10 or 12 years ago. I not only use knee pads for skiing, I wear them at work too. I finish concrete and have them on for 10 or 12 hous a day and never experienced a problem from them.

My hardshell ski pants have a pocket inside the pant leg and came with fabric pads. I replaced the fabric pads with plastic ones and use the fabric pads in my softshell pants. The softshell pants didn't have pockets but they had a double material in the knees that I was able to cut a slit in the top and slip the fabric pads in there. Wearing them like this there is no pressure on the knee until you bend your leg all the way.

I would suggest sewing a pocket to hold your pads in your pants and also switch to a fabric pad w/o plastic to relieve the pressure. Like you said pads aren't as important now as they were on old style gear. I like them to keep my knees warm as a cut my longjohns off right above the knee because I have a problem with hot feet.

I was thinking the exact same thing. I can't fathom why FlyLo hasn't done this. Getting rid of the elastic straps pulling the pad onto the knee cap is key.

[Harris]

Sorry about your knee problems guys. I also have problems but my knees are better now than they were 10 or 12 years ago. I not only use knee pads for skiing, I wear them at work too. I finish concrete and have them on for 10 or 12 hous a day and never experienced a problem from them.

My hardshell ski pants have a pocket inside the pant leg and came with fabric pads. I replaced the fabric pads with plastic ones and use the fabric pads in my softshell pants. The softshell pants didn't have pockets but they had a double material in the knees that I was able to cut a slit in the top and slip the fabric pads in there. Wearing them like this there is no pressure on the knee until you bend your leg all the way.

I would suggest sewing a pocket to hold your pads in your pants and also switch to a fabric pad w/o plastic to relieve the pressure. Like you said pads aren't as important now as they were on old style gear. I like them to keep my knees warm as a cut my longjohns off right above the knee because I have a problem with hot feet.

My last pads are newer BD pads. Even leaving the top straps loose still aggravates the issue. But I'm okay going without. I get pretty low, but I haven't banged top sheet since I was on leathers. Still feels naked though. My problems really started when I switched from basketball pads to hardshell skateboard pads. Those damn basketball pads used to slip down onto the shins, even when using gators.

[Harris]

FlyLo really should make a sleeve pocket inside that have closed cell impact foam like motorcycle road race leathers do. That new foam in modern race leathers is the bomb; they only firm up when impacted.

[lowangle al]

Those blue 5 dollar camping padsfrom wallmart are good too. Just about any pants with a double reinforced knee can be modified pretty easily to slip one in.

[fisheater]

Al, I only finished concrete for about 20 years. I then caught a break and went into construction management. Now I just changed jobs and am back with a construction management/ general contracting firm. I was with a concrete contractor for the six previous years. I was an estimator/project manager, however I had a knack for getting work beyond the skill level of our crews. Those jobs I would field manage. I just managed better with a tool belt on. Our pouring crews were pretty good, I didn't spend any time on my knees.
I do find my knees do hurt more at my age. I have taken to deep knee bends. It seems to help. I recently went through a period when I wore a neoprene brace with a hole for the knee cap for about two weeks. The support seemed to help. It was a wake up call to knee health, as I could not shrug it off to an injury or strain due to rigorous activity.
Are there any exercises you use? I do remember glucosamine/chondrotine used to help back in my concrete finishing days, but I would rather work on strengthening the joint, then treating it with medicine.
Thank you, and are you wintering in PA this year?

?

Sorry about your knee problems guys. I also have problems but my knees are better now than they were 10 or 12 years ago. I not only use knee pads for skiing, I wear them at work too. I finish concrete and have them on for 10 or 12 hous a day and never experienced a problem from them.
.

[lowangle al]

Hey fisheater, I changed the way I skied to get rid of the knee pain. As a result of skiing double camber skis for so many years I had the habit over overweighting my skis. I would overweight the lead ski to start a turn then overweight the rear ski to finish it.I also used to do slalom type turns with a lot of ski flex to control speed which put more stress on my knees.

To fix the problem I let the skis turn by properly edging them without all of the unweighting going across the fall line and kept my weight evenly distributed on both skis throughout the turn. I also started doing less turns with less ski flexing allowing me to carry more speed. The main point is to stay more centered over your skis to avoid overweighting either ski, which puts strain on your knees.

I enjoyed skiing the way I did, but besides the knee pain I didn't look like most other skiers on the hill and knew I needed to make some changes. When I first started making the changes I called it "skiing my age." It took a lot less energy, I went further and faster than I ever did with less fatigue and the illumination of the knee pain was an added bonus.

I have also been taking glucosamine and chondroitin for twenty years or so.