How Much Skateboarding Safety Protection Do You Need?
Skate wrist guards come in three basic designs, offering you three different choices of skateboard protective gear:
- Protective Skate Gloves With Integrated Wrist Guards. These protective skate gloves help protect your fingers with short-finger leather skateboard gloves, as well as your palm and wrist with integrated skate wrist guards - all in one package.
- Standard Skateboard Wrist Guards. These wrist guards have metal splints that curve from your wrist into your palm, providing similar skateboarding safety protection as the skateboard gloves, but without protecting your fingers.
- "Pure" Wrist Guards. These offer straight wrist protection, with short splints and/or battens that support the wrist. These do not help protect your palm or your fingers.
What you need for skateboarding safety is dictated by the aggressiveness of your skateboarding style and desire to learn new tricks and stunts.
What Type of Skate Wrist Guards Splint Material Are You Comfortable With?
The splints (sometimes called battens or disks) are the hard pieces on the front and back of the wrist that provide support for the skate wrist guard. These splints can be made of metal, carbon fiber, plastic, or a hard foam.
Deciding on how much protection you want, versus how much flexibility you want, will determine which material is best for you. Metal is strong, but not very flexible. Plastic is more flexible, but may allow more deflection during an impact. Based on how hard you expect to fall, choose a skate wrist guard that offers you the highest level of skateboard protective gear you can get.
Doing aggressive tricks and moves? Go for metal. Not as aggressive and more into finesse, then plastics work.
Do You Want Removable Splints in Your Skateboard Gloves?
Some skate wrist guards allow you to remove the splints and replace them. After hard use or a big crash, the splints may become scratched and rather ugly. If the design allows it, you can purchase replacement splints and get your guards looking good again for only a few bucks.
How Much do Skateboard Gloves and Wrist Guards cost?
The good news is that skate wrist guards are relatively inexpensive, even those equipped with protective skate gloves. Expect to pay anywhere from $10 to $50, depending on features. Skate Pads Combo Packs are a great way to outfit yourself with a complete pad set that may include wrist guards – and give you the skateboarding safety protection that comes from top level skateboard protective gear.
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