My eternal quest to find a pair of knee pads that aren’t like wearing loaves of bread on your knees whilst simultaneously cutting off your blood supply until you begin to suffer necrosis of the lower limbs and need to have your feet amputated, has finally been resolved. I recently bought the Poledancerka knee pads, sold at polejunkie.co.uk, and can say I have had a very positive experience.

Available from: www.polejunkie.co.uk

Price: £25.00

Available Sizes: XS – XL

Fit

I bought these in a size Large, as I have had no luck in the past with knee pads in a size small or medium, in terms of the whole necrosis issue. I am a UK 8, with muscular, but by no means big, legs. The size large work well for me in this style, although admittedly I think I could have gotten away with wearing a size medium as I am in between the two on the size chart, as the material they are made from is much stretchier and giving than in other styles of knee pads I have tried (such as regular dance ones or volley ball knee pads). The knee pads stay in place during floor work and dancing, and don’t slide down or move in a way that prevents them from being effective.

There is a size guide designed to help you make the decision by comparing your lower thigh measurements to the chart, find it below:

Comfort

As I said above, these knee pads do not move around or slip down. The actual padding in the pad is comfortable without being bulky, avoiding the loaf of bread affect which is a pain (resisting urge to make a French bread pun) to work around floor work. I usually get terrible knee bruises even from one intense session of floor work, but after wearing these for one session my knee bruises were instantly relieved. I bruise very easily, and when I am running through a routine with floor work 4-5 times in a single session, it can leave my entire knee in one big, very painful bruise, so these knee pads are a God send.

Pole Appropriate

These knee pads are excellent for floor work as I have established, but are they appropriate for pole? They are designed with an exposed back portion to allow for knee hangs, and a sticky section to grip the pole. I have comfortably inverted in these, and found the sticky area gripping easily against the pole. However, I wouldn’t necessarily trust to use these during a performance just in case I missed the grippy area, but I think I need to practice in them more first so you may trust them more.

Downsides

Although an excellent pair of knee pads there is one downside. The grippy portion of the knee pads can get sticky against the floor during certain floor work moves, so can make the fluidity of certain moves a little trickier. However, this doesn’t detract away from the original purpose of the knee pads, which is to protect the knees, which these definitely achieve.

The knee pads in action:

A video posted by Peach 🍑🍑🍑 (@peachleeray) on Apr 21, 2016 at 7:38am PDT

♥♥♥

Conclusion

To conclude, these knee pads are a great investment if you require something to protect your knees during floor work, but still want to have some grip on the pole for tricks and poses. They are affordable, the sizing seems to be accurate to the sizing chart provided, and the materials are comfortable and effective.