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What I do know is that the road to recovery from my femur injury was way more brutal than my knee injury recovery. A rod and 8 screws + a year of painful rehab made my knee recovery look like a cakewalk. Also to note, I wear Pod kneebraces now and like them. But I also do way more full body workouts and lots of squat/balance/stability/stretching exercises that have made my legs so much stronger and more flexible to the point where I'm thinking that I may want to try some TP199's or Leatte version. They're not that expensive so I think I'll purchase some and see how they feel.
So that kinda debunks the whole "kneebraces break femurs"-theory. Unless you're using braces that don't have that design.
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Almost every comment in this thread starts with “I do x/I wear x/I had x injury”. Anecdotal evidence relevant to your unique skeletal structure is nothing more than anecdotal evidence. But that won’t stop me from sharing a story.
A couple weeks ago, I had an absolutely massive get off in 4th gear. I got up to find broken bar mounts, bent subframe, etc on bike- and my bike landed on me after I got tossed over the front. Guess where it landed? My knee. It bent the metal framing on my EVS Axis when the rear tire slammed my left knee while I was still tumbling. I’m sponsored by EVS and have a second set of braces, thankfully. So I suit up for 450 moto 2, and with a brand new pair of boots never worn and a brand new set of knee braces I dabbed my right leg in a 2nd gear corner. My foot twisted and my foot peg hit the back of my boot causing a spiral complete fracture of my fibula and a dislocated ankle.
In my big crash I hopped up fine. In a small dab I fucked my leg entirely. Sometimes protection works, sometimes it literally cannot no matter what. Just do what makes you feel safe, comfortable, and confident.
#1 - Adjust them so they lock your legs out before full extension.
#2 - Use the anti-rotation strap that locks the brace to your boot. This makes it so your ankle and knee axis of rotation stay parallel. This effectively eliminates TWISTING of the knee. Most ACL tears have some component of external rotation. By locking your boot to the brake, rotation is spread up your leg to your hip joint.
If you adjust your knee brakes like this....you will understand why your knee is much less likely to get torn up.
100% credit to Jason Thomas on both these tips. He mentioned this on the PulpMX Show many years ago, and he was right on the money.
That being said, I now focus on better mobility in my knees and more strength, letting the leg/knee muscles do their job.
To each their own.
Broken femur or mess up knee.....both suck.
Pit Row
Can you prove that eating corn doesn't eventually lead to death????
I remember a couple times I slipped the peg landing a jump, caught the peg with my brace and didnt even crash when I totally would have been hurt otherwise. Broke the frame on the brace and Asterisk would charge like 300$ to fix it each time.
I broke my left femur in a crash years ago (way before any knee braces were around!), stretched my left ACL/MCL in football, and then tore the left meniscus years later in moto. Then I bulged 2 discs in L4/5 last year plus lawn darted into a whoop and messed up my left shoulder. I've rehabbed from all pretty successfully. At 58 I'm still riding, and I now pay very close attention to technique, fitness, and how much I weigh. Anything over 185 I can feel the change in impact from jumps etc so I try to stay there or below. I work hard to keep muscle mass high, maintain flexibility, and keep aerobic stamina. I think all have helped minimize the injuries I have had plus improved my recovery times.
It's a rough sport. No matter your age/fitness/speed or the gear you wear sometimes you are gonna get hurt. Soft sacks of meat hitting the ground at high velocity tend to go splat.
Hammer 663s
I recently returned to riding and now i have the Asterisk carbon cell braces. They are light and low profile. So i do not mind them.
For the guys that have worn braces all thier life and now have switch to pads. Its like taking the condom off LOL.
People ruin their knees both with and without knee braces. People fracture femurs with and without knee braces. People get concussions with helmets on. This protective equipment is designed to help reduce impact/loads to the body, but nothing is guaranteed.
Sadly our bubble is pretty small and there is no strong clinical studies done on knee brace efficacy in motocross, however there is a really good one that was conducted on skiers by Dr. Steadman and crew. They saw a significantly reduced number of knee injuries in the braced vs non-braced group. I think it's reasonable to say that skiing exhibits some of the leg vulnerability that we see in motocross.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16870823/
That being said, I do agree that most knee braces in their current design do not resist ACL damage (rotational injury mechanism) as well as we'd want (they definitely help), but they are pretty damn good at MCL/PCL injury prevention though. Just because you put a knee brace on doesn't mean you're safe. Also, the heavier/fatter you are, the less effective knee braces become as you're strapping around more soft tissue. This is why I'm a believer in the "brace to bone" brace philosophy because we are trying to "anchor to" and prevent unwanted movement in the skeletal system at the end of the day.
The twist in the knee can occur regardless of the brace, some less than others. Braces are good for preventing a complete tear of the ACL or a blown out knee from a side bend ( I think called lateral bend).
I have had my best results from proper exercise routines that target specific muscles in the leg and have not been back to Dr. Orthopedic since taken his advice on what exercises to do every week.
I didn't dab or crash and I didn't take any roost (2 holeshots helped me stay out of the roost!), so I can't say they worked "better" or not than a brace. I'll wear them for a while and see how it goes.
Hammer 663s
Motocross is just as much mental as it is physical, so wear what makes you feel comfortable and confident, and do everything you can for injury prevention (build strong leg muscles, good riding technique, etc.).
Knee pads are light and comfortable, and provide moderate impact protection. Knee braces are a little more cumbersome, but they do provide ligament protection, and typically better impact protection than sleeve pads.
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