Info on Knee Braces

I've been looking into this a bit lately for my girlfriend. Check the motorcycle forums. It seems that a lot more dirtbikers are tearing up knees than us. They seem to like the Asterisk braces with a knee cap guard and the custom made CT1 braces.

From that photo you attached - that looks like a CTI brace, which is what Jill Kintner uses. It's a prescription only knee brace. The one that is similar and off the shelf is the Asterisk. I use the Asterisk ones for both of my knees. They're not cheap either at about $600 for a pair. They work fairly well and comes with a couple of knee sleeves. It does take some getting used to and a few rides to break in.

Get a prescription for CTi's. I have the Astrisk braces. They are bulky and get hung up on my frame and they slide down my leg after a while causing me to have to constantly pull them up. I guess they do the job, but the CTi's fit a little closer to your leg and you can get a knee cup for them now. Your Ortho should be able to prescibe them for you if you talkto him about it. I had my Asterisks prescribed for me back in 2001. If you do a search on knee braces here you should be able to find a lot of info.

I have the worst knees. I have had surgery on my right knee 3 times. Twice had the ACL repaired. In 1985 at the age of 14 while riding vert ramps I completely tore my knee to shreds. I tore Every Ligament, Tendon and Cartilage completely apart, broke the knee cap and the 2 bones in the bottom part of the leg. I had complete reconstruction after that incident. In 1995 while working at the Texas State fair grounds in Dallas, I fell off of a ladder and retore the Miniscus and severly sprained my MCL. In 2003 while racing DH for the first time ever at Crested Butte, I happened to put my foot down in a weird way and tore the ACL again along with re-damaging the MCL, and again tearing the miniscus. I simply cannot have anymore knee injuries so I currently use a BREG brace. It works well, but is a few years old. It also has knee cap protection but the whole brace isn't very compact and doesnt allow any other type of knee protection. Do the CTI braces allow for pads like the strait or the TLD? I am very interested in 2 new braces for my knees.

Hickey - sorry to hear about your knee - that really sucks. A lot of pros use an Asterisk brace:

http://www.asterisk.com/

...expensive, but from what I've heard, very supportive and it feels like it's not even there.

I'm pretty sure Hill runs the "CELL" under his TLD racing pants, but I could be wrong.

Hope this helps.

I have a custom set of CTI's due to previous knee surgeries. If you have insurance, it will actually be cheaper than a set of asterisk braces (if the cover durable medical equipment). They make a plastic knee cup, with a neoprene backing that is part of the brace. not a huge amount of padding, but helps. And the carbon structure will definitely take a few hits...there is a reason all the moto guys ride with them...

Tore my PCL 13 years ago. Never had the chance to get it fixed. I found riding with a brace very inhibiting so I dealt with it. It doesn't really hold me back...on a bike.

oh yeah, 6 surgeries just to put it back together, and they didn't do the ligaments.

CHeck out teh EVS stuff too, they have some good products for support.

The only EVS that I felt worked was the carbon one and that is no good for bikes.

Knee braces are great to blame bad riding on.. I do it all the time.

EVS is a cheaper product with a bad hinge design...CTi and Asterisk have a superior hinge and a better product. Search Innovation Sports for the CTi braces. There are several models of the CTi if you can find it.

I vote CTi as well. Fortunately, I don't need it anymore.

As I read this thread I was thinking "maybe we should wear these things BEFORE injury, instead of waiting until we nail ourselves". Then someone mentioned Hill rides the Cell asterisk brace. Is he recovering from tendon damage, or doing exactly what I just said?

I have a Townsend Full Shell (custom by prescription). http://www.townsenddesign.com/ Worked well enough for me, but I found that the covers on the hinges came off making for a very sharp edge, which was problematic for team sports. Looking on their website, it looks like they make a motorcross version of the full shell...

One thing to remember is that the support in braces only kick in once you've begun to sprain the knee. And a strong enough force can still overpower the brace (given the way they attach) they're really mostly psychological, providing some degree of reassurance to athletes that they can return to activity despite having a knee injury (at least so said my surgeon).

slyfink said:

One thing to remember is that the support in braces only kick in once you've begun to sprain the knee. And a strong enough force can still overpower the brace (given the way they attach) they're really mostly psychological, providing some degree of reassurance to athletes that they can return to activity despite having a knee injury (at least so said my surgeon).

Click to expand...

Not true on the Asterisk & CTi as they have a stop built into them to prevent full extension. You can still break your leg if you wear braces but I guess that's better than torn ligaments.

The Asterisk/CTi's have a hinge that follows the arc of your knee. Think of it as a "compound" hinge that bends and slides back at the same time. It causes less binding in your knee joint. Asterisk developed the compound hinge and incorporated it into the CTi product line (they used to be a related business untill Asterisk went out on their own...long story but they are/where in the same building for a while). The Asterisk's are bulky that's why I would recommend the CTi. Here's a picture with the Asterisk's...