22 August 202421:391,521 views on YouTubeWatch on YouTube
eFoiling is rarely anyone’s first board sport, which means a lot of riders arrive with an old injury attached. Knees take the worst of it. This episode works through three braces used across several seasons of riding, with an honest note up front that none of this is medical advice and your own diagnosis belongs with your doctor.
Why a brace at all
The background here is a right knee with two meniscus repairs behind it and advancing arthritis, being managed with the goal of delaying a total knee replacement for as long as is bearable. The reasoning is worth borrowing: joint surgery gets less invasive and longer lasting as the technology improves, so if you can live with the joint, waiting may buy you a better operation and a better recovery. If it is stopping you enjoying your life, that calculation changes.
The offloading brace that hates water
The Unloader One by Ossur is the best of the three for dry land. It is an offloading design with a hinge on one side only, which keeps it light, and it is simple enough that it is hard to fit wrong. Put it on standing and tighten it, and it tips the load away from the worn part of the joint. It is also expensive, listing in four figures, and it is emphatically not built for water. It takes a long time to dry, components have rusted, and bolts have been replaced over the years. Excellent for a hike, a poor choice for a session.
Cheaper and more adjustable, but more to get wrong
The OA Unloader from Comfy Orthopedic is the budget alternative, bought precisely because destroying one costs far less. It offers real adjustability: tension and camber can be set with a hex key, and range of motion can be limited with stops. That flexibility is the problem. It is a brace designed to treat many conditions, so it can be fitted incorrectly without you noticing, and getting it wrong can do harm rather than nothing. It also contacts far less of the leg, and it delivers noticeably less support than the Ossur. Worth knowing generally: these braces work best against bare skin, where the silicone strips can grip. A brace that slides is not stabilising anything.
The pick for riding: Bauerfeind GenuTrain S
The winner for water sports is the GenuTrain S from Bauerfeind, a light sleeve with rigid supports on both sides and a gel ring around the patella. The ring is not needed for this particular injury, but it turns out to be very welcome when you are kneeling on the board getting up. It is easy to put on, it has never been anything but dry when reached for, and it costs a small fraction of the Ossur. The result reported after wearing it is the important part: races used to be followed by a swollen, crunchy knee that evening, and with this brace that has not been happening. It is one rider’s experience, bought with his own money and with no brand affiliation, but it has been enough to keep him riding hard.
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